


Multitudinous Echoes

by walking_tornado



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, F/M, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sickness, deportation, suffocation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walking_tornado/pseuds/walking_tornado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cargo ship captain Jensen Ackles' two week crap job transporting colonists off-planet should have opened the doors for lucrative government contracts.  Farmer Jared Padalecki should have married and started a family.  Jared and Jensen's destinies intersect when Jensen rips apart Jared's life, separating him from his fiancée and removing Jared's people from their land.  To win Jared over, Jensen recklessly promises to find Jared's lost fiancée.  Jensen, Kim, and Felicia struggle to keep the colonists alive, and Jensen tries to ignore his growing interest in Jared as they search for Adrianne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Upheaval: The Contract

**Author's Note:**

> art by dollarformyname

 

 

> Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance,
> 
> Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant branches;
> 
> But not a voice replied; no answer came from the darkness;
> 
> And, when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was the silence.
> 
> —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
> 
>  

A metal box, with trailing wires and a fan-folded tube still attached to one of its rounded corners, whizzed by Jensen's head and bounced harmlessly off the wall behind him.

"What the hell? Rhodes!"

"Stop buying cheap crap! It breaks and then we just have to replace it again." Kim Rhodes met his glare from the open hatchway. Jensen looked away first. The box had rebounded off few more surfaces before losing enough momentum to slowly make its way towards the air exchange intake.

"Air splitter?" he asked.

She sighed. "Yeah"

"Shit." Jensen absently toyed with his communications labret as he thought. It had been a habit his father had always hated.

"The other three in the holds still work?"

She nodded. "This was the last one that needed to be installed."

"A hundred and fifty people," he mused, and then nodded. "Yeah," he said, "should be fine. We can get it fixed at Bardock Station when we drop everyone off. I'll send a message so they'll have one ready. Should receive it before we arrive."

From the wall next to her handhold, the ship's communications panel pulsed and beeped. Kim glanced at it and then shrugged. "Message for you from . . . Omundson. Friend of yours? Audio only."

Grabbing the broken splitter as he passed, Jensen pushed himself across the room to stop beside her.

"Looks like it's been on the communications relay for a few months. It was sitting on the repeater, waiting for us to stop in-system. If your ship actually worked and we hadn't needed to stop early, we'd have missed it completely."

Jensen frowned. He hadn't seen Tim Omundson in a couple of years. "Play it."

"Ackles!" His friend's voice boomed over the speakers. "It's taken you long enough! If you're by this way in the next month or so, I need to see you." Tim's message stopped.

"That's it?" Jensen asked.

"That's it. So?" Kim asked.

Jensen bit his lip. "We'll be cutting it close if we stop. The contract is void if we're not there on time." Then he shrugged. "Do it. Fuel's good so we can push it in transit."

"Alrighty then, let's get this baby working again."

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Kim muttered, as they slid in the last of the rebuilt propulsion components. "Why are we moving these people anyway?"

"Little bit towards you," Jensen yelled "Yes! Got it. It's locked in." He rotated his body so that he faced Kim. "Does it matter? They're hiring people to do it, may as well be us. You take the land, and I take the money; it's like this job was made for us."

"I suppose," she said. "All that room is going to be weird."

"Great, you mean! Be excited! And I get to go legit _and_ get paid! Government work and all. And think of the boys playing outside . . . I mean, shit! None of Jim's little planetoid piece of crap. Newstart has near Earth-standard. You won't even need a mask!"

"Yeah." Her smile seemed wistful.

"How are they settling in here? They've been pretty quiet."

"Okay, I guess. It's still pretty new, so they're bouncing around the ship, getting a feel for the place. Mostly playing in the observation area. It's not a long transit, so I think they won't get too bored. I brought a bunch of toys for Jim to keep 'em occupied with." Jensen wondered what he'd revealed in his face because she laughed at him and continued. "Don't worry, the boys—and Jim— have strict orders to stay away from the Command module and captain's sleep station. I'm at work, and they know I'll kick their ass if they get underfoot."

"They . . ."

"Just spit it out."

"They still in diapers? The little one . . ."

She laughed outright now. "Worried about having shit flying around the room? Nah, they're both out of that stage—but you're forgetting: even if they weren't toilet-trained, unlike Jim I'm not from planet-side. I know how to handle kids in space."

"And Beaver?"

Her eyes grew fond, and he wished he knew what she saw in the man. He and Jensen had never gotten along. "He's been nauseated ever since he and the boys got here."

"So not going to be a distance spacer?"

"Nah, once we hit Newstart orbit I'll drop off him and the boys on the station, and rejoin them when we finish." She stared out the nearest porthole and chewed the inside of her cheek.

"Sorry."

"Yeah, well, gets them off that god-awful planetoid at least. Even if . . . We done here?"

Jensen nodded and let the topic change. Her and Jim's decisions for their family were none of his business, and he had no reason to feel bad about it. He'd just presented the opportunity and said he needed a co-pilot for this trip. Being away from her family for a year was her decision to make.

"I'll bring the Impala in to Mej-9 for the shielding retrofit, and secure a shuttle to take me planet-side to visit Omundson. We'll leave in two days."

She frowned. "That's not enough time. Not if you're heading into gravity. What—"

"I'll eat the expense and get assisted tech. Any later will throw us too far off schedule."

"You're the captain," she said, and when Jensen looked back from the hatchway, she was once more looking out into space.

 

"Ackles! Come in! It's open." The warmth of Omundson's greeting came through the open window and Jensen shuffled through the front door. He was all-too aware of the occasional whirring and grating of the suit he wore, and wondered how much Tim was going to make fun of him. As teens, they'd had very definite—and unflattering—opinions of spacers who'd choose to wear assistive tech as a short cut for proper acclimatization. But he didn't have days to acclimate to a gravity environment, and so needed wear his specially designed suit that compensated for his muscle weakness. As it was, the relentless pull of gravity, even with the augmentation suit, left him exhausted, though the planet's gravity was only half of Standard.

"Tim." Jensen embraced his friend and hid his concern at the man's curved back and thin frame.

In the few years since Jensen had seen him, Tim had aged. Gone was his fastidious clean-shaven look; now a full beard obscured much of his face, but Jensen still recognized the hawked nose and the sharp eyes that looked at Jensen and sparkled with mischief as they always had. A year younger than Jensen, Tim was now nearly twenty years older, thanks to the accelerated time of Jensen's last long-haul trip out-system. The wrinkles around his sunken eyes spoke of a wealth of experiences that Jensen hadn't had yet. He was sitting with a nose tube curled around his cheek, but Jensen couldn't see where it went or to what it attached. Then Tim smiled, and despite all the changes, it was still his smile, the one that sent a flutter to Jensen's stomach. And damn! The man still clearly owned any room he entered.

Jensen started to open his mouth but couldn't find words. He felt awkward standing before his best friend, and that had never happened before, not even during that painful, adolescent almost-conversation where Tim had made it clear that he knew about Jensen's feelings, but didn't feel the same. Some years later, Tim and Jensen had met a young lady during an extended stopover for upgrades on the Impala, and that had been it for Tim. Life in space was long stretches of waiting around, punctuated by brief, life-changing decisions. Tim had decided to stay and make a life planet-side.

Jensen hadn't.

Now, Jensen looked at him and felt like he'd been frozen in time. The time lag had never hit him so hard.

Jensen sat down awkwardly on the chair next to Tim's bed. The bed had been set up in a small family room, and a commode chair sat in the corner, not well hidden by a hastily-thrown sheet. Jensen didn't know where to look. Apart from the oxygen, the man seemed fine, just . . . old. Still, this room had the feel of a sickroom. Jensen didn't ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Got your message," Jensen said, unnecessarily. "Can't stay long. Job."

""Yeah? Where are you headed next?" Tim asked him.

"I have a government contract. Gerebund system. Osric found it and left me a message on amplified relay."

"Gerebund? You entering the war now? Turning privateer?"

"No! I'm no pirate!" He paused, caught by Tim's steady gaze. Between them lay the knowledge that Jensen's father had sometimes leveled that same accusation at him. It hadn't been a compliment. "War's over and—"

"That war's never over!"

"I'll be part of the post-war cleanup on Newstart. Resettling the inhabitants now that the new government's taken over, as part of the peace treaty." "

"And Osric?" Tim asked.

"Young," Jensen said bluntly, and was relieved that his friend's deep, quick laugh hadn't changed. Jensen tongued his labret, and hit a couple taps on the control screen that projected onto his sleeve. He sidled closer so Tim could see and turned on Osric's video message.

"Hey, Ackles, I have a gig for you." Osric's voice sounded thin and reedy through the speaker patch on Jensen's augmentation suit.

Tim laughed. "He is young! Even younger than you. Hah! And he was the oldest. . . What a mind-fuck!"

"I'm leaving this in transit," Osric's recording had continued, "so it's anyone's guess if it actually gets picked up by a repeater. I got a line on a sweet government contract. Just the kind of thing we were talking about last week. Pay's not great—mostly land concessions, and what the hell are you and I going to do with that?—but there's serious potential for future contracts if the job's done right. Anyway, just show up around Newstart, at planet-local year 232. Oh, and you'll be transporting passengers, not cargo, so get some upgrades. I know—sucks. But should be worth your while. Osric out."

"Shit, Jen! I hadn't even met Ruth when he sent that!

"Yeah, it's pretty much a fluke we got it and are near enough to Newstart to get there."

"Think you'll make it? You never were great at time-shift planning."

"Maybe. I had my pilot—remember Kim, the girl who'd started before you abandoned—sorry," Jensen grinned. "Before you found your one true love? Anyway, she ran the numbers, taking in the relative time distortions, and there's a chance. But it'll be close. That's why this is a cut and run visit."

"Well, I appreciate it. I hoped you would be back in time," Tim said.

Jensen shrugged. The awkwardness had crept back in again. "We're finishing up passenger retrofitting at Mej-9. And that weakened side-propulsion finally gave. That was pricey." Jensen scowled, thinking of the difficulty he'd had haggling for that much needed part.

A smile lit up Tim's face, and he stared at Jensen and shook his head. "You're just the same."

"You're not." Jensen said it quietly, and they shared a moment of silence as they contemplated their different paths. "Hey, how is Felicia?" Jensen asked, searching for a less melancholy subject.

"She's . . ." Tim's eyes drifted off, and his small smile was warm. "She's phenomenal. Smart, beautiful—got her mother's red hair—stubborn. All the best of her mother, and the worst of me." Tim chuckled.

"So where _is_ your better half?" Jensen asked. He hadn't seen Ruth when he came in, and didn't hear anyone else puttering about. When he had left, the young firebrand that Tim married couldn't have been pried from his side, though Jensen had tried at first.

"Well . . . that didn't quite work out."

Jensen raised his eyebrow, and Tim shrugged.

"We split when Felicia was twelve."

Jensen blinked at him. "But you left m—the life. For her."

Tim shrugged again. "It happens. Ruth moved to the lower orbital station a few years ago, and Felicia came to live with me." He studied Jensen. "I'm not sorry," he said, and the words cut more than Jensen thought they should. "We had a great few years—and a few bad ones—but I got Felicia, and that's just . . . well, you'll see someday." Jensen privately doubted that he'd ever get to know what Tim was talking about.

"This little Felicia?" Jensen turned around a photo of a smiling redhead, who looked only a few years younger than he was.

Tim's pale face broke into a wide smile. "It sure is! Studying to be a doctor. Top of the class." He beamed as he spoke, and, after a hesitation, continued.

"What do you think, Ackles? You and kids? Worked for me." Jensen turned from the picture of the young woman and tried to imagine Tim playing with his young daughter. Even just talking, his eyes had lit up for her in a way they had never lit up for Jensen in all the time they had travelled together. As much as he wanted to, Jensen couldn't deny that family had meant happiness for his friend—who was still looking at him, apparently waiting on an answer.

Jensen shook his head. "No. Not my thing."

"No?" Tim 's look seemed sad. "Maybe when . . ." He paused when Jensen shook his head and then continued on a different tack. "If it's about your dad, you don't have to be like that. You have a choice. . ." He trailed off again in the wake of Jensen's hard stare. Sick or not, Tim should have remembered that there were issues Jensen wouldn't discuss. Maybe Omundson had lived long enough to gain a new perspective, but Jensen hadn't. His father was off limits, and his best friend should have known that.

"No," Jensen said. "The family thing, it's just not what I want."

Tim nodded. "Then this is going to be a bigger favor than I thought." Jensen found he could no longer read his friend as well as he used to—Tim now had so many more unshared experiences—but he knew that expression couldn't be good.

"What do you need?"

"When you go, take Felicia with you."

"What?"

"Ackles, look at me. Look," Tim ordered. Jensen took in the too-large clothes, the off- colour skin, and he hadn't missed the fact that his friend had not once left the chair during this visit. Tim nodded once, and he continued. "I'm dying. I have about two months, three maybe." He chuckled, with no trace of mirth. "I thought you might not get here in time."

"What is it? Can't they do something?" Jensen was unable to modulate his voice, and his shock rang out loudly in the room.

Tim shook his head, calmly. "No. I've talked about it, to everyone and their pet monkey, and I'm done. I'm not interested in dwelling on it anymore. Yes, there is a treatment—it's nasty and probably wouldn't do much—and no, I'm not taking it." He held up a hand to forestall Jensen's objections. "I mean it, Jensen." And Jensen knew that nothing he said would change his mind. "And that's why you're here. I need you to take Felicia."

"But your wife —ex-wife . . ."

"No," he said firmly and Jensen raised his eyes. "Felicia and her mother . . . they're like oil and water. Always have been. Never goes well. Ruth checks in sometimes—not as much now that Felicia's all grown—but she has another family. They don't really keep in touch." He paused and looked out the window at the darkening clouds in the orange sky. "She and I have always been close; it's why she came to live with me when her mom and I split. But now . . . well, she's angry. At me. Because of the treatment, or the lack thereof." He sighed before continuing. "She's dropped out of school. She scuttled her scholarship. She's looking to leave anyway, determined to go off-planet. Told me that she refuses to stay and watch me die." He cleared his throat. "I found her checking out some rather unsavoury looking ads for a deckhand. You know the type I mean?" Jensen grimaced and nodded. "I don't think she'd go with them, but . . . she tends to run when under stress. And if I. . . Will you take her? If she needs to go, at least I can make sure she's safe."

Jensen opened his mouth, then closed it again and nodded. "Timmy . . . I need to leave soon. Tomorrow. This contract . . . it's just some boring taxi job, but it's legit. I make a good run and they'll throw something significant my way. I can't give that up."

Tim nodded and sagged back in his chair. "Still trying to get away from the old man's legacy, huh? Don't sweat it, she should be here soon. I didn't tell her you were coming. And Jensen . . . this can't be my idea. It has to come from her; it has to be her choice."

Jensen's eyes opened and he said, incredulous. "I don't know how . . ."

But Tim just laughed. Jensen hadn't realized how tense his friend had been until his tacit acceptance let Tim relax. "I know my girl. Don't say anything. She'll come to you. Don't worry. Now tell me more about this job of yours."

The door opened and it banged against the doorstop harder than necessary.

"Ah, there she is!" Tim perked up as she stormed in. "Felicia, this is Jensen! You remember me talking about—"

"Did you start treatment?"

"Felicia—"

"Did you? Because I told you already. I won't watch you choose to die. I won't."

When Tim next spoke, his voice was quiet. "No. I didn't."

"Then I think we've already said everything. Bye, Dad." She said the last with a hitch in her voice, spun around, and stormed out of the room. Tim's face had fallen and Jensen stared at his friend helplessly.

"Now go find her." Tim's eyes were sad, but his voice was strong, with only the faintest waver. "And thank you. Oh, and Jensen?"

"Yeah?" Jensen forced the words past the obstruction in his throat.

"Later, after I . . . when she regrets what happened and starts blaming herself about leaving, you tell her that I understand, and I approve, and that I'm proud of her. So damned proud. And not to take shit from anyone, especially from you." He finished with a watery laugh.

 

 

When Jensen exited the room, he closed the door behind him and rested his forehead against it until he could see again. After a few moments, he swallowed and blinked rapidly. When he looked up, he saw Felicia leaning back against the wall a short distance away, watching him.

"Last time I saw you, you couldn't walk yet," he said. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Did you try?" She said suddenly. "To get him in treatment. You did try, right?"

Jensen sighed. "I never could change his mind, not when he's set on something."

"Yeah," she said softly. She swallowed, blinked quickly, and turned away. After a moment her shoulders straightened and the next words she spoke were in a hard voice.

"He used to fly with you. You own a ship."

Jensen nodded, though it didn't really seem like a question.

"Take me with you." She didn't wait to hear an objection. "My dad told me all about what you did when he was my age. Told me about saving your life. You owe him."

"I do owe him. Don't owe you, though."

"I work hard, I learn fast."

"Hmmm." Jensen pretended to consider it.

She took a deep breath and continued. "It was his dream, you know. Dad. He and I traveling together. We were waiting for me to finish and get my papers to hire on to a cruiser . . . He misses it." She eyed him up and down with a slightly puzzled look, obviously registering the augmentation suit that allowed him to walk, as if wondering what it was her father could possibly have missed. "But he's given up. Won't even try. I can't be here for that. It makes me so angry. . . He tell you what he has? You ever seen Terrilean sundown before? What it does?"

"No." Jensen replied. "Not firsthand, anyway."

"It's bad. I won't watch it." She took a step forward and grabbed his arm. Startled, he automatically took a step away, but his unfamiliarity with the gravity made it impossible. This young woman he both outweighed and towered over could easily hold him in place with one hand. "I will be the best deck hand you ever had," she continued. "Please."

"Okay."

Jensen looked into the Felicia's wide eyes. The last time he had seen her, a couple dozen months ago, she'd been only days old. He didn't recognise that baby in the young woman now before him.

"But you'll earn your keep," Jensen warned. "We leave tomorrow morning."

He saw hope and sadness fight for dominance. Hope won, and she pulled her shoulders back and stood taller. "I'll be ready."

 

 

It was only when he had returned to the Impala, with a quickly thrown, "Kim, this is Felicia, find her a bunk," and had retreated to private quarters that he allowed himself to break down. For their teen years, he, Osric, and Tim had been inseparable, the only teens in his father's ad hoc crew of low-lifes.

When he finally responded to Kim's repeated demands for explanations, no trace of his tears remained.

Jensen maneuvered the last grey storage containers out of the main cargo hold and into temporary storage in the tiny storage area near the conditioning room. He lined it up and with a push, let it sail into place in the last available slot. The other two containers would have to get strapped somewhere in the personnel quarters.

They were half-way through their deceleration procedure and well into Gerebund system space. If he put it off any further, it would be near impossibly to move the totes. The new planetary government had requested that ships activate their artificial gravity while they welcomed the colonists. The heavy grey totes were not designed to be moved by one person without vacuum.

"Done," he said, and his labret ship's link picked up the vibrations and sent them to Kim.

Jensen fastened the strapping into place when Kim's voice came through a second tragus piercing by his ear.

"Good. Hold cleared?" she said

"Doing a final sweep now," Jensen said as he banged his fist on the circular door release. "You know," he continued, "we probably should call the hold something different. Just for this trip."

"What, you think a name change will make it any classier? Something like passenger quarters or guest accommodations?"

Jensen swept his eyes over the large steerage compartment, paying close attention to the new pipes that wormed their way across the ceiling.

Never designed to carry live cargo, the cargo hold had no windows, and until recently had no adequate air filtration. Jensen painstakingly checked the connections they had added for water and oxygen, and he jiggled the carbon dioxide splitters to ensure the boxes were secure. He announced the in situ readings to Kim, who compared them to the Impala's Command display. He stepped through the hatchway into what used be a working airlock before the extension had been added. Now it was just another entry into the hold, and for this trip it would be the only entry. The holds had been designed to be extend away from the main flight modules for rotation, should simulated gravity be needed. The holds had had no life support system of their own until Jensen added them during the retrofit, but now all of the Impala's systems met the minimum standards stipulated for passenger transport.

When everything was all checked out, he drifted along the walls of the hold, listening for any sound that shouldn't be there. Like hissing.

"Looks like we managed to patch the oxygen leak."

"Bout damned time!"

"We're a go for hull integrity," he said, after a moment, and he could picture Kim checking it off the list. "Did Felicia finish going over the water reclamation system?"

He heard Kim's sigh in his ear. "Of course she did. And learned about the propulsion system, and now I think she's doing an inventory of the food. Can you get her to relax a bit? It's tiring just watching her."

Jensen laughed. "I'll have a word. Have you heard back from our contact yet? Did they say when to expect the supply shipment, or when people would start to board?"

"Nope. I'm finished up here. If it's okay with you, I'm going to go help Jim pack up the boys' stuff."

"Yeah, sure. We dropping them off at the station or are you calling a planetary shuttle?"

"Station."

"Sounds good. While you get them settled, I'll pop over to the bar."

 

 

"Hey, I hear you're making Kim look bad," Jensen said, by way of greeting as he made his way into the galley kitchen. The room was little more than hidden storage and wall-to-wall panels with a velcro surface. As he entered, he moved aside a handful of floating cubes about the size of a fingertip.

"This is not food! You can't feed people this crap," Felicia said. She didn't look at Jensen as he approached, focusing on catching all the escaping cubes and fitting them back in their storage unit. Since he didn't have time to train a new crewmember as he and Kim took care of last minute details, Jensen had tasked Felicia with learning the ins and outs of the Impala, a task she apparently was taking very seriously.

 

"They need rehydration, but there's nothing nutritionally bad about the ration packs. Anyway, they're just emergency food."

"They're four years past their date!"

"Emergency rations," he repeated. "No one expects to ever use it. Got the crate on sale. It's not ideal past due, but you can still eat it. Anyway, we have plenty of actual food and we're getting fully provisioned for this trip when we enter orbit. It's in the contract."

"Better be," she said, with a disapproving eyebrow, as she fitted the last of the cubes back and fastened it closed.

"So, um," Jensen paused. In the few weeks Felicia had been with them, he's found it hard to connect with her. Tim's presence always seemed between them. Had Timmy been here, he'd have kicked Jensen's ass for pawning off Felicia's orientation on Kim. "How are you making out?"

"The water reclamation system checks out, I followed the diagnostic maintenance procedures you gave me. I inventoried our fuel supply and just finished tallying the food. If there's nothing else, I was going to take a look at basic piloting guidelines."

"Great! That's . . . great. Not exactly what I meant though." He paused and waved his arm around, generally indicating the Impala. "We made it in time, but it was kind of a quick departure. Been adjusting okay to . . . space and stuff?"

He got the feeling she was laughing at him, though her response was a perfectly appropriate. "Yeah, getting used to it."

"So . . ." Jensen said, as he helped her repack the provisions. "Really? A pilot?"

She shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

He studied her and nodded. "Okay. I guess I could give you a piloting apprenticeship, sort of. If you want."

"Really?" Her eyes danced like her father's did when he was particularly excited about something.

"Yeah. You can start when we enter the inner orbit. I'll even let you try the controls—not much for us to hit, and pretty easy to adjust it. But when we make an approach to Station Seven, you only get to watch. I'll try to remember to explain stuff, but . . ." he shrugged, "never had an apprentice before, so I might forget."

"That's okay."

"You know, other than me and Kim, your Dad was the last person to pilot her." He'd said it casually, just an interesting tidbit of information, but it slammed down like a ton of bricks. Felicia's mouth opened to speak, but she hesitated. He waited.

"Jensen—Captain—I think I made a mistake." Felicia's eyes were wide open, and so sad. "I left him alone. . ."

"He thinks you made the right call."

"What?"

"He told me to tell you, when you had doubts."

Felicia took a breath and nodded, then looked up. "I want you to stop home before you continue on. I need to go home."

"I can't do that."

"But. . . "

"I'm under contract to carry people to Bardock, and they're expecting it to take us two weeks. A detour like that," Jensen looked out the window and avoided her eyes, "we wouldn't make it. And . . . Sorry. I can't."

"How much time has passed for him, do you think?"

"Not sure, exactly," Jensen said. "Months. We can calculate it more precisely, if you want. Takes a lot of processing power, so check with me before you run it."

"'Months," she said, staring at the wall. "He might be . . . It would be advanced."

Jensen didn't look at her. "Yeah."

"You know he told me about his diagnosis before I went back to school. And I went onto the floor, that first week and I treated two people with Terrilean who had refused treatment. I even ccompanied them to palliative."

Jensen nodded.

She continued. "The first one died pretty quick. The second took a long time and I couldn't do anything, and I hated it. Never returned after break."

"Maybe—"

"He wouldn't even _try_!" she said, but the shadow of anger was overshadowed by pain, confusion. Jensen said nothing.

He tried to think of what Tim would say, but drew a blank. The kid he'd known was not the man she did. His friend didn't do serious, and until Tim met Ruth he'd shirked anything that looked remotely like responsibility. He would have joked during a serious moment like this, no matter how inappropriate. And maybe that's what Felicia needed to hear, but Jensen couldn't do it. He and Tim had always been very different.

"Jen?" He felt guilty for the massive relief he felt to hear Kim's voice.

"Yeah, Kim." Jensen shrugged in apology to Felicia and pointed to his labret.

"Made contact with your guy. Says the supply shipment has been delayed. We have to wait for further instructions. He's on the line, waiting for your confirmation. "

"Okay, let me get to Command—signal's clearer." He turned to go, and paused. "Felicia—"

"I'm okay. Go on." She smiled weakly and motioned for him to leave. He did.

 

 

 

"So?" Kim asked, lounging in the cargo hold with Felicia. She and Felicia were passing the time playing darts, and from the way conversation shut down as Jensen entered the room, he knew he was interrupting something.

Kim lined up her shot and gave her rounded dart the smallest nudge. Everyone waited as it crept past one of Felicia's blockers, just touching it enough to nudge it aside and lose momentum. It came to rest directly in front of the bull's-eye, but about a foot short. Kim whooped and spun in a little dance. "And that's how you do it, newbie!" Felicia gave a small, longsuffering smile, and moved around the play area, studying her options. Darts were a common pastime in space, though it bore little similarity to its planet-side counterpart. Felicia had said it looked like some kind of whacky curling thing, but Jensen had no clue what she was referring to, so the conversation had fizzled away.

He shrugged. "Nothing he didn't tell you. Supplies are delayed, wait for instructions. You?"

She didn't look at him and her voice was suspiciously toneless. "I got Jim and the boys settled on the station, and we spent four fucking hours filling out paperwork."

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's all straightened out. Just a pain in the butt. Listen, Jensen," she stopped lining up the shot and looked down at him. "If you're going to the Lounge tonight, you mind if I hang around some more with the family?"

"Felicia?" Jensen asked, and the redhead turned towards him in surprise.

"You feel able to crew the Impala for the night? We won't be far, and there shouldn't be any problems."

"Unless you're looking to pick-up too," Kim added, with a nod to Jensen.

"Oh! No," Felicia hurried to say. "I . . . I'm going to wait for Echelon. You are planning a stopover, right?"

"Smart girl," Kim muttered with a nod. Jensen shot her a fake glare.

"Yeah, we're stopping when this run is done," Jensen said. "She's yours for the night then. Don't touch anything."

 

 


	2. Upheaval: Heavy Cargo

 

The Station Seven Inner Orbit Bar and Lounge was no different from the any other space bar that Jensen had frequented—cramped, smelly, with a variety of local alcoholic choices and a couple inter-galactic staples. Like most stations, the orbital lounge maintained a low gravity, enough to allow any travelers to take advantage of their top notch, and very expensive, conditioning room.

Jensen made his way slowly in the low gravity, noting which muscle groups he needed to target in his workout routines. He let himself slump into a tall-back barstool, giving tired muscles a bit of a rest from his walk. He signaled to the bartender and soon was sipping the bar's special, whatever it happened to be. He let it swish around his mouth before he swallowed. A hint of spice, sweet, with a bit of a kick towards the end. He shrugged and took another mouthful. Not the greatest, he decided, but it would do.

The same types of people populated most station bars, surprisingly similar across galaxies. There was an interesting mix of weary locals, looking for some downtime and hoping the newcomers would leave them alone, along with those hoping desperately for passing ships to be shorthanded and therefore willing to take them anywhere else. The occasional pilots and crewmembers, who, like Jensen, had just arrived and were overjoyed at being anywhere outside their spaceship, intermingled with those who were there for one last hurrah before embarking on the weeks-long quarantine of their next destination. Then there were those waiting around for a decent brawl to join.

Jensen had been eyeing the blond in the corner ever since he walked in. He was about stand up to go introduce himself—probably something straight to the point like, "Hey. Just got in. You wanna?"—when he noticed someone standing unusually close. Jensen started, hand dropping to where his knife should be, except that had been confiscated like all other weaponry. A hand clapped him on the shoulder.

"Jen, you made it!"

Jensen relaxed and smiled up into Osric's jovial face. "Yeah," he replied. "You made it sound so good, I couldn't say no."

"That's 'cause it's the best paying legit gig you'll ever get! Shit, Jen, you've gotten old!" Osric stared at him, eyes moving slowly over his face, noting changes that only he remembered. He looked around, craning his head to see past a group of new arrivals. "Where's Omundson?"

"He's . . . not on this trip. I'm flying with his daughter."

"His . . . When did that happen?"

"About twenty or so years ago, planet-local."

Jensen watched Osric blink slowly. Jensen could see the mental shift in Osric's facial expression. "So you guys went your separate ways."

"Yeah. Couple years ago. He fell in love."

"Ah, shit, Jensen. You okay?" Osric always had seen through Jensen's pretense.

"I'm fine." Jensen's features tightened, and Osric let it go.

"So how's Timmy, anyway?"

Jensen looked away ."Not good. Terrilian. Advanced." Jensen fiddled with his straw. "He only had a few weeks, if that, before we left. By now . . ."

Osric's eyes widened, and he sat down. He said nothing for a moment, and then all he said was, "Whoa."

"Yeah." Jensen nodded. The he shook himself. "Let me get you a drink?"

"I'm good for now." Osric waved his tumbler. "You get the next one. So, just you and the kid?"

"And my co-pilot. She's taking the land title. I didn't want it."

"Yeah, no kidding." He shuddered. "And what does she plan to do there?"

Jensen shrugged. "Be with her kids? Plant things? Whatever people do planet-side. By the time we get back, her kids'll be seven or eight."

Osric shook his head. "Rough for the families."

"Better than staying in the overcrowded shithole they were in."

"And you and me get in the good graces of the sector government? Damned insular bastards."

Jensen laughed in agreement. "Yup. Time for some decent contracts, not all this smalltime planet-hopping I've been doing. And the bonus should get me an upgraded Command module. It'll be sweet!"

"You still flying your dad's Impala—that thing's old as fuck! Seriously? Didn't think she'd be up for the job."

"Hey! That baby's got me through a hell of a lot. None of the new tin cans can touch her."

"Yeah, 'cause she'd turn into dust at the smallest vibration from my H-23, The Prophet." Osric threw up his hands in mock-surrender, as Jensen stood up, in what would have been threatening but for the laughing.

Jensen's eyes drifted back to the guy in the corner. He was stunning, the picture of an intergalactic model, and the play of muscles as he moved had Jensen's libido kicking in, even as he hung out with Osric. Osric noticed.

"See something you like?" he asked with a smirk. Jensen took that as his cue.

"As a matter of fact, I do, and while I enjoy your company, it's been a long few weeks."

Osric shook his head. "You mean no one's putting out? Jensen! I'm shocked. Must be the advanced age." He laughed.

"Kim's married, and Felicia is Omundson's _daughter_. Ew." Jensen made a face. "Hell, even if I was into women, that's all sorts of wrong."

"She's not legal?"

Jensen sputtered. "Sure she's legal, but that's not the point! Timmy's _daughter_." Osric looked thoughtful, and Jensen continued, no longer smiling. "She's off-limits."

Osric shrugged. "Yeah, whatever." He smirked at Jensen. "Hey, someone's checking you out." He inclined his head and Jensen looked over to meet the clear blue ones across the bar.

Jensen clapped Osric on the shoulder. "Let's meet tomorrow, man. Shoot the shit. You can tell me what you've been up to." Osric slid off the stool and slapped his shoulder as he passed.

Jensen was standing directly in front of blue-eyes when his ship-link chimed in his ear. He winced his apology to the potential hookup and stepped aside to accept the link.

"Ackles," he said.

"Captain?" Kim's voice was clear in his earpiece. She sounded perturbed. "You need to get back here."

"Now? Can you give me a couple hours—Wait. Weren't you on-station tonight?"

"Yeah. I was. You need to come back."

"Shit!" Jensen said, as he turned regretfully back to the what-could-have-been in the corner. "Gotta go." The man shrugged, took another look at him, head to toe, gave a dismissive smile, and turned to watch someone else a couple tables over.

"Problems?" Osric called to him, setting down his beer as he hurried past.

"Always."

 

 

Jensen propelled himself into the command module, jerked his harness down over his shoulders, and secured himself to his padded seat. He looked around, but there were no warning signals or alerts, and he allowed himself to relax a bit. Annoyance replaced the fear.

"Two hours," Jensen said, keeping his frustration on a tight leash. It had been a while since he'd had a chance to interact with anyone not on the Impala, but he did know how much damage words could do, especially when cooped up together in a relatively small space for months. He kept his voice calm, steady, and non-accusatory. "What was so important that it couldn't wait two hours? I'd just met this guy at the bar who—"

"Jensen." Kim's no-nonsense voice brought him up short. He shut up and let her continue. "Got a message to expect the first group of passengers. . ." She checked her watch. ". . . within the hour."

"What?" Jensen shook his head in confusion. "That has to be a mistake."

"Yeah. Seemed a bit strange so I had Felicia do some digging."

"Okay." He nodded and waited for her to get to the point.

"What do you know about this run?" The concerned in Kim's voice made him glance over and he saw her frowning at the screen in front of her.

Jensen shrugged. "Not a whole lot. Basic stuff. Current government took over this planet — part of the peace treaty, or something. Government is relocating the rebellious locals to somewhere outside the disputed territory. And they're willing to pay us to do it—not a lot, but they threw in the land concession. And they were okay with this being a cargo ship and not a passenger cruiser."

"Jensen, look at this." As she spoke, Felicia worked at her console and Jensen's mouth dropped as a shaky video feed flashed on screen, followed by another and another. Children crying, houses burned, farmers throwing rocks, people forced into secure enclosures by government troops in riot gear. Bodies on the ground. Troops storming into housing units, forcing the occupants at gunpoint from their dwelling, rounding everyone up and burning villages. Anyone who resisted coldly being shot. Kim nodded to Felicia and she switched feeds: different location, similar event. Over and over again they watched it happen. Resistance to the soldiers' sweeps was minimal and any combat was very one-sided, as the settlers lacked both training and suitable weaponry.

"What's this?"

"This is the 'resettling' you were talking about." She paused. "Jensen, did you know these people are not going willingly?"

"No. I didn't," he said, as he stared at the screen. He hadn't really thought about it, about the whole situation, only that most of their money issues would be solved by this one little job. As he spoke, he watched footage of an older man stepping up to prevent the manhandling of a younger woman, a daughter, maybe, or a granddaughter. The butt of the soldier's gun shattered his nose and the women was taken away as he lay bleeding in a crumpled heap.

Felicia killed the video and no one spoke.

"So what do we do?" Kim asked him.

Jensen set his shoulders. "We do what we came here to do."

"What?"

"Is us leaving going to stop that?" He waved at the screen in disgust. "It happened. It's happening. Those people are being evicted from the planet. And that's going to happen, whether or not we're involved."

"Jensen!"

"Of course I don't like it!" he shouted. "But if we leave, what happens? They'll still be moved by someone else. We'll just lose the money I spent on retrofitting, and we may not have enough credit to buy the supplies to get to a next job. Can you throw away that land concession? You going to explain to Jim and the boys how we have to go back your crappy planetoid with its looming famine?"

Kim closed her eyes and turned away.

"Am I wrong?" Jensen pleaded. "If I'm wrong, say so! But that, to me, is the situation. We don't have much of a choice here. What's going on—we can't stop it. And any jobs local to this sector have dried up. It's smuggling or government contracts. Kim. . .one last job—two weeks— and then you're settling down with the happy family."

"Okay," Kim said, and her voice was small and quiet. Jensen replayed the message. "We need to leave the station. Kim, take us to the coordinate they gave." He typed in the coordinates. " Felicia, you'll get to see how the artificial gravity works. We don't usually use it, but sometimes it's helpful for those coming from planet-side."

Felicia said nothing, but her accusing eyes stared at him until he turned around and left the command module to do another check of the holds.

"Jensen! A shuttle's on approach," Kim said. He just anchored himself into his seat when the Impala beeped an incoming communication. Jensen thumbed it on.

"Shuttle-45 requesting to dock with Impala-2Y5."

"This is Captain Ackles, Impala-2Y5. Permission granted."

Jensen frowned at the background noise he heard. He hesitated before continuing. "Everything okay, captain?"

"Affirmative." The reply was immediate and expected: no military captain in this sector would admit to anything wrong, especially to a lowly cargo ship captain. Jensen was surprised when the man continued, "Coming in at capacity, sir. If I might suggest, an armed presence might be advisable. For your own safety."

Jensen blinked and looked over at Kim, who was watching the shuttle's progress out the side porthole.

"Did he just ask us to be armed when he docks?" She turned her head and looked at him with a frown. " Shit, Jen! They fuckin' fined us for it when they did a spot inspection last time we were in this sector!" When Felicia looked confused she added, "Policies in this system strictly forbid non-military armament during any boarding procedure."

"Something's happened." And with that statement Jensen moved. A handprint recognition opened the bridge's armory. Standard issue, nothing fancy. He handed a stun rifle to Kim, right behind him, and took one for both himself and Felicia.

When he handed Felicia the rifle, she didn't take it.

"I don't want this," she said. Jensen placed it in her hand.

"Aim here. Trigger's here," he pointed as he spoke. "This is the safely. It's on. Only remove it if I say so. It's electric, so no danger of it penetrating the ship, but if you miss—and hell, sometimes even if you hit—it can fuck up the ship systems until we reboot. So last resort only." Jensen had heard that the newer ships had fixed that particular design flaw, but the Impala certainly wasn't new.

"I don't want—"

"I don't care. Situation's changing. Also, I want you suited up."

"EVAC?"

"No. Augmentation suit. It comes with an armor attachment. We have two of them. Lower storage bin, next to Kim's seat."

"What's going on here Jen?" Kim asked.

"I don't know," Jensen said as he hurried down the main corridor towards the docking bay. "I'll take Felicia with me—"

"But—"

"No. We're going to Failsafe," he said as he pulled on the second augmentation suit. "Stay in the command module and don't open it for anyone."

"Might be overreacting," Kim muttered, frowning.

"Very likely," Jensen agreed. Then he continued as if she hadn't said anything. "Isolate yourself from the ship's systems in case you need to space her. Until you get an all clear that's reliable, you're acting captain."

Kim gave a sharp nod, but Jensen was already entering his code to transfer the Impala's functions to Kim's command. Then Jensen and Felicia propelled themselves towards the cargo hold to greet their visitors.

"Jensen," Kim said, and Jensen adjusted the volume in his ear, "the shuttle's on approach and is matching rotation. Coming it a bit faster than I expected . . . Docking in three, two, one." Jensen felt the shudder of the spinning holds as the shuttle slid into the docking port and he heard the whirr as the Impala clamped it tight. He stood with Felicia in the entryway corridor, waiting for the pressurization to complete. It was trickier to dock with a ship with active gravity rotation, and required the receiving ship to adjust for the uneven mass. But it was in the contract and likely had been included by some planet-bound official. Jensen now wished he had reviewed the contract more closely.

Jensen gave Felicia a once-over to ensure that Felicia's suit functions were on and that the helmet that obscured her face was secured. In the suit, she could be anyone. If there were problems, no need for anyone to know there were only three people on board. He slid down his own helmet visor, and knew that all anyone would be able to see was their own reflection.

An alarm preceded the hiss of the Impala's seal opening. Jensen sent the Impala an acknowledgment, which killed the alarm.

Two armed guards immediately jumped through the opening. Jensen held his weapon in his hand, pointed at the ceiling with his finger off the trigger, and Felicia did the same, as he had instructed. The guns remained trained on them for a few moments, before a uniformed officer told them to stand down. She strode forward and Jensen took a step forward extending his hand to welcome her on board.

"Corporal Buckmaster," she said by way of greeting. "Where's your muscle?" She pulled out a tablet and asked him to sign the paperwork.

"This is it," Jensen said.

"Fuck," the woman said. "So listen. There's a problem with the timing of the supplies and the arrival of another transport."

Jensen nodded in sympathy. "Isn't there always?"

She gave a derisive snort at the timing problems endemic in interstellar operations, and continued. "The locals are restive. We separated out the men to keep 'em off-balance and we confiscated any weaponry. We're moving them earlier than planned to prevent any more attempts to free those we already have. You might temporarily get a few more than we'd planned, but just hold here, and wait for orders." She eyed Jensen and Felicia, dubiously, and then she grimaced. "Hang on. Let me see if I can get authorization to provide backup."

A few moments later, she returned to where Jensen was cooling his heels under the forced nonchalance of her gun-toting boarding crew.

"Okay," she said. "I'll let get my crew to help you get them settled—but only," she emphasised with a pointed finger, "because I don't want them overpowering you and taking the ship back down to the planet. It was a mess to get them off, and they are not going back. We'll deduct the cost of the boarding crew from your bonus."

Jensen pinched his lips tightly, and she raised an eyebrow. He weighed the likelihood of him being able to control a hundred or so angry villagers to get them to the cargo hold and he nodded. The shuttle captain gave a jerk of her head, and a handful of soldiers detached themselves from their place in the corridor. Jensen led them to the hold's entrance, and they arranged themselves along the path, stationing at every hatch.

Jensen felt his eyes widen as his passengers were let in. Quiet, disgruntled, angry, they marched in silently, gazing with wide eyes at their new surroundings. As they were herded down the corridor and into the converted hold, Jensen saw a few groups attempted to break free, only to be quickly subdued by the indiscriminate use of stun guns. The cargo hold seemed to fill up quickly.

"Captain." Kim's voice vibrated in his ear.

"Kim," he said, only loud enough to be picked up by his labret. "Talk to me."

"We can't take many more," Kim said, bluntly. "And there's another shuttle on approaching to dock with Antipode1."

Jensen spun around and walking up to Corporal Buckmaster. The rifle muzzles rose automatically as his approached. "There's another ship coming?"

"Yes. A shipment of women and children are docking opposite from us," she said.

Jensen shook his head. "We only have one hold prepared. We were told one fifty, max."

"Well, get it ready quick," she said. "Our orders are for double that."

"We're a cargo ship! Those holds don't have life support. They're not intended for live cargo! You can't dock there."

"You have a second docking bay on this side?"

"Sure, but—"

She threw up a hand to wave him silent and said to the closest soldier. "Tell the other shuttle to dock beside us. We'll have to fit them all in here. Go." He hurried off.

Jensen spoke up again. "You can't board any more. We don't have the room."

She scrutinized him and shook her head. "I'll try to contact my superiors and sort it out," she said, "but we have our orders, and those people are boarding. Make room." She turned and strode back through the hatch to her shuttle.

"Shit shit _shit_! Kim, you hearing this?" Jensen said. To Felicia, he said, "Keep a count of how many more board."

"Yeah," Felicia said.

While his connection with Kim was silent, it remained open and in the background he could hear her voice commands to the Impala as she sought to recalibrate systems to handle a higher number of people. The alarm of the second docking bay sounded, and soon a second stream of passengers, this one mostly made up of women and children, was herded in the same direction as the first. Felicia's eyes darted from one hatch to the other as she tried to keep up.

Corporal Buckmaster hurried from the shuttle to yell at the junior officer who had okayed the transfer before her crew had finished securing their shipment. He looked at her in puzzlement but her concern was soon made clear when cries resounded in the confined space of the bay as children and wives recognized their fathers and husbands. Everyone stopped and craned their necks to see if they could find their family, pushing back against the soldiers prodding them forward. The token resistance from before was nothing to the chaos that ensued as the embarkation crew tried to force everyone down the corridor and into the hold.

"Move 'em along," Buckmaster yelled. The soldiers stepped up the pressure and after a short spate of violent confrontations, the group moved forward again, more slowly and looking behind them, which allowed more to exit the crafts.

"Whoa, hang on," Jensen called out, but he was ignored by everyone. "This is too many!" Buckmaster didn't stop the transfer, but did step closer to listen. "We planned for one fifty," Jensen said, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

She looked him over. "Here's how it's going down," she said, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "Our calculations show that a ship this size can easily take three times that, even without the second hold, and we only have three hundred. They're boarding. It might be a bit cramped but you're not going far. They can manage for that distance."

Without another word, she withdrew to speak with a subordinate.

"Fuck! Kim," Jensen said, "Still listening?"

"No, I—"

"I need a quick calculation of our max capacity."

"We calibrated for one fifty," Kim began.

"Yeah. Well, they're giving us three!"

"Shit! Hang on!"

Jensen counted each person that crossed the threshold, but he often lost count, and his concern ratcheted up with each one.

"Two fifty-three," Kim said. "Absolute max. That's nothing to do with comfort, that's strictly life support. As it is, we're going to have to do some jury-rigging of the filters."

"Two fifty!" Jensen yelled at Corporal Buckmaster over the din. "I don't care what your accountants think. We're not set up for any more!"

"Captain, we're already past that!" Felicia said, and he suspected she was the only one who had heard him.

"Shit," he said. The last passengers had left the first shuttle, but the second shuttle was still unloading. He drew his firearm. "Stop!" he yelled, and pushed back the next woman who walked on, she stumbled back into the shuttle, and fell into the people behind her. The passengers recoiled and the nearest soldiers drew their firearms. Corporal Buckmaster called for them to hold fire. "We're over capacity," Jensen yelled again, and when no one moved he grabbed two people who stood in the bay and shoved them back towards the shuttle.

"How many?" he muttered to Felicia.

"Eleven more," she said.

"What the hell are you doing?" the shuttle captain yelled.

"No more. Our hard cap is two fifty! There are already eleven people too many! Here." Jensen called up Kim's figures on his wrist monitor and waved at her to come over, conscious of the gun following his movements..

"Hold," the captain called to her underlings as she walked over.

"Take a look," Jensen said. "I _can't_ take on any more."

"And even two fifty is pushing it," Kim interjected in his ear. He wished she was next to him right now; Kim could be a damn sight more persuasive than he was, when she wanted to be.

"Okay," Corporal Buckmaster said. Then she opened a communication channel to her subordinates, and Jensen heard her say. "Send those on deck back to the shuttle. And we need eleven from the corridor sent back to the shuttle."

The scene descended into chaos as the soldiers arbitrarily removed the eleven closest people they could grab, primarily women and children, back to the shuttle. Cries of dismay, then panic and anger, arose as families fought to stay together.

"No!" shrieked a woman as her child was dragged away. "Gil!"

"Adrianne!" bellowed one man. Jensen turned, but didn't see who had yelled. Instead, he saw a woman with long blond hair being dragged away by soldiers back to the shuttle. The woman struggled, got an arm free and elbowed the guard who held her. She twisted and managed to get her hand on the guard's firearm. Jensen moved. He trapped her arm, and twisted it up behind her back, using it to propel her forward to the shuttle.

"No! Jared!" she yelled. "Jared!" Her voice rose to a scream as another guard arrived to take over from Jensen. When Jensen looked up, it was to see a massive wall of a man barrelling down on him. The man's fist came out of nowhere. Stars burst across Jensen's vision as he was smashed into the ground.

"Captain?" Felicia's voice. He blinked up to see Felicia's looming over him in concern. She had slid up the visor, but had left the helmet on. With clumsy arms, Jensen slapped the side of the helmet and the protective visor slid back into place. "Are you okay?" she asked. Her voice was muffled by the helmet, but it came clearly though his implant.

"Fine," Jensen said. He slowly stood up, thanks in large part to his activation of the augmentation suit's power assist capabilities. Blood seeped down his chin and neck, making the neck of the suit stick uncomfortably every time he turned his head.

"Are you hurt, Captain?" Corporal Buckmaster asked. For the most part, she kept her face impassive, but Jensen caught the crinkle around the eye and the occasional twitch of her mouth as she fought not to laugh at him.

"Fine," Jensen repeated. "Is—" He was jostled backwards, by the guards who had secured Jensen's assailant, and were now dragging him away from the shuttle whose doors were closing.

The man fixed Jensen with his angry glare. "You promised!" he yelled to Jensen, and then shifted his gaze to Corporal Buckmaster and back to Jensen. "You said we'd stay together! You promised!" As if a rallying cry, dozens of others took up the call, accusing Jensen of reneging on a promise he had never given.

"What the hell are they talking about?" he asked the shuttle captain. She shrugged.

"They claim Major Lehne gave a big speech and promised to keep families together."

"Okay. Seems reasonable."

"All we were told was to keep control of the situation," she said. "We didn't have time to track families. That will have to wait until they arrive."

"Sir." One of the soldiers came to a stiff salute in front of Buckmaster. She nodded and he continued. "All have been transferred to the cargo hold."

Jensen walked over to the airlock, guarded by leveled guns, placed his hand on the door panel and the heavily plated metal door slid across and sealed the hold with a hiss. The lights beside the hatch flashed red, indicating its seal was intact. One of the soldiers raised an eyebrow. "Expecting trouble?" He motioned to the airlock.

Jensen shook his head. "No. But this here's an Impala. They're modular. So that was the outer hatch just last month before we got an add-on."

The soldier nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, I heard these ships never die. Don't see them around much though. Missing all the latest tech."

Jensen shrugged and moved closer to look through the porthole. The passengers were milling around, many crying, many angry, some comforting others, some hugging children.

"Fuck," he said.


	3. Upheaval: Mutiny

 

Jensen entered the last of the recalibrated telemetry and sat back with a whoosh of breath. It had taken the better part of a shift for him and Kim to go over the tiny changes to their route. The extra cargo threw off their fuel consumption during accelerations, and in areas where their route took them towards the edges of more significant gravity fields the flight plan needed to be adjusted.

Finally Kim nodded. "This is it," she said, and she began confirming the numbers until the last of the yellow highlighted areas flashed green and then went out. "Done."

"Okay, let's go see where Felicia is with life support."

Kim chuckled as they made their way into the bio-support module, located on the opposite end of the ship from Command. While he and Kim went over the flight plan, and recalibrated for the added mass, he had tasked Felicia with taking stock of the life support issues, an altogether more difficult challenge. "Shit, Jensen, that was mean."

"She offered to help, and she's not a pilot. . ."

"Yet," Kim said, and she looked a question at Jensen. "You offered to teach her?"

"Sure. Why not? We have a couple weeks of boredom to kill while in transit."

"Just figured you'd be encouraging her to go back to med school. Pilots are a dime a dozen," Kim said, and they paused at the closed hatch of Bio-Support.

"I will." Jensen tried for a smile, but didn't quite make it. "But she's not ready to hear it yet." He opened the hatch. "Give it to me," he said. Felicia's eyes were tired with dark bags under them, and she tugged at a strand of hair as she frowned at the screen.

"It's not good," she said simply.

"Yeah, well, we didn't expect it to be," Jensen said with a glance at Kim, who looked steadily back.

"Any word from the supply ship?" Kim asked.

Jensen shook his head. "Only that it's still delayed."

"Are they bringing water?" Felicia asked, and Kim and Jensen came up beside her to look over her numbers. "All the extra people, and you hadn't planned any upgrades to the system—"

"So reclamation will be running at capacity," Kim finished for her.

"We only need two weeks," Jensen reminded them. "Then we can overhaul the system before the next trip."

"But the air is the biggest thing," Felicia said. "Look here." Jensen frowned at the most recent system report.

"The splitter malfunction," Kim reminded him, and he winced.

"The what?" Felicia asked.

"One of the CO2 splitters is broken," Jensen told her absently, as he scrolled through the Impala's systems report. "Wouldn't have been a problem, but the extra load is going to push it."

"Can you fix it?" Kim asked. Jensen nodded slowly.

"Going to have to," he said, and he turned on his way out the hatchway to add, "I'll be in the shop."

"Captain!" Felicia called, and Jensen stopped. "The passengers. Have they eaten, or . . . have you even contacted them since they boarded?"

Kim raised an accusing eyebrow, and Jensen gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't start Kim," he said, and shifted his eyes to Felicia. "It's a hold full of planet-siders," he said., "who have been shipped off-planet and into a low-gee environment. Any food is just going to come back up. They needed a bit of time to acclimate. Should have been done gradually, but . . ."

"Have you told them that?" Felicia asked. Jensen didn't answer, but Kim did.

"No, he didn't," she said. "Because he forgets that he's moving people and not supplies."

"We've kind of been busy . . . Fine. I'll let them know what's happening."

 

Jensen called up the video feed to the hold. Nothing much had changed from the last time he had looked in on them, other than they seemed to have assembled into ragged groups, but from here he couldn't tell what sort. There was markedly less crying and screaming, which was a good thing.

Jensen took a deep breath and activated the hold speaker.

"Hi, this is Captain Ackles." Jensen winced at the reverb and turned off the audio. "We will be transporting you to Bardock Station, which is on average a two-week trip. We will leave as soon as the resupply ship arrives." He turned off the sound but left the video feed, and he narrowed his eyes as every single passenger appeared to be talking or yelling something at once.

He opened a channel to the hold again. "Excuse me," he said, loudly, and repeated it again before it quieted enough for him to be heard. "You'll have to choose a spokesperson. I can't listen to you all at once." After fifteen minutes of talking and arguing, one person finally stepped forward, looking all around as if unsure where he should address. Jensen closed his eyes as he drew a deep breath. Just his luck that they would choose the tall man who'd hit him. He wondered if that had been a point in the man's favor with the others. "Please move to the communications panel by the door."

The man looked around for the panel and eventually began to move in the right direction. Manual laborer, Jensen thought, or maybe a bodybuilder. The man's biceps were huge, and Jensen could see the play of muscles along his shoulders and back through the tears in his tight shirt. This man could rip him in half without trying, Jensen thought. Not even the most diligent of spacer workout would produce a body like that. Jensen's eyes flicked to the weapons they had replaced in the locker but hadn't yet secured.

The man accessed the panel.

"Hello?" The voice was hesitant, as if he wasn't quite sure he was doing this right, but the eyes hadn't lost their pinched anger, and his jaw remained tight as he spoke.

"I take it you're the spokesperson," Jensen said.

The screen filled with the man's face.

"Jared Padalecki." Padalecki took a step back and the resolution improved. "We haven't eaten lately," the guy said. "Actually, not since yesterday morning. Can you do something about that, Captain?" Jensen didn't like the undercurrent of anger he heard. This guy was going to be a pain to work with. "There are kids here, and you're fucking starving them—"

"We'll be sending in food momentarily. As provisions have not yet arrived, you'll have to make due with ration bars for now."

"What the—"

Jensen closed the link.

Padalecki stepped away from the camera and walked over to the large group that was listening. The panel microphone couldn't pick up what he was saying, but from his thunderous expression, and the animated arm-waving, Jensen could tell he wasn't happy. Jensen paused with his finger over the communications panel, but instead of switching off the channel, he activated the wide-array microphones, muting his own end.

". . . bunch of crap! We need to get out of here and get back home, find where they put all the others!" Murmurs of agreement accompanied his words. "So when they come with the food, we strike! Overpower the bastards. I don't think there are many. The soldiers I saw were only the locals. Take over. Those pussies will never know what hit them. Hiding behind their guns and armour. . . There, and there," Padalecki pointed to the sides of the door. "Surprise 'em. Bam!"

A large swell of voices rose as Padalecki finished speaking. While there were some objections, and urges for non-violence, Padalecki's plan had far more support than Jensen was comfortable with. Jensen was pleased to hear someone speak out.

"Bad idea, Jared. What the hell do you know about flying something like this?" The speaker was a short, dark woman—though Jensen suspected anyone would look short standing next to Jared—and she stood with confidence, though she was the lone dissenting voice among the sea of hotheads. He wished she had been chosen as the spokesperson.

"The computer will take care of most of that," Jared said, and Jensen rolled his eyes at the ignorance of that statement. "These fucking things are built so that any idiot can fly them. Like," his voice hitched, "the piece of crap medical diagnostic on the shuttle."

"I'm sorry about Adrianne's dad," the woman said. "He hadn't been feeling well—"

"They killed him!" Jared shouted. "These people, those fucking people who dragged him away from his home. They're all the same!" The murmuring grew louder, and Jensen nudged Kim awake from where she'd dozed off with one foot hooked on a piece of webbing.

"Jen?" she said, blearily.

"Trouble," Jensen said. "Looks like a mutiny."

She shook her head. "Mutiny would be if they were crew. They're essentially prisoners. And really, are you surprised?"

"I didn't take them from their fucking planet! That was the fucking government! I'm the one trying to find them a new home!"

"Jensen! You don't really expect them to make that distinction, right? You're not an idiot!"

Jensen held his head in his hands, and rubbed his temples. "We didn't plan for this, Kim. What the hell was I thinking?"

She patted his back. "You were thinking that you would finally get beyond going paycheck-to-paycheck, you thought that you would finally make your father proud—"

"My father has _nothing_ to do with this!" Jensen yelled.

"And you saw a simple way to solve both of our problems with one little nothing trip," Kim finished, as if Jensen hadn't spoken. "So what's this plan of theirs?"

 

 

When the cargo hatch opened from the former airlock into the cargo hold, there was no one on the other side. Jensen switched cameras, and the image displayed in the corner of his visor shifted to a wider angle. Watching from the upper camera across the room, and he could clearly see Padalecki and three other men waiting just beyond the door with their backs pressed against the wall. Jensen zoomed in on Padalecki, and saw his tense confusion as the wannabe ambushers waited for someone to enter through the hatchway. No one did. Finally Padalecki nodded and two men darted from their positions and into the airlock. Jensen smiled.

"What the fuck, there's no one here!" one of the men called out, and they tried repeatedly to open the second airlock hatch that connected the hold to the rest of the Impala. Padalecki's face was thunderous as he walked into the airlock and came out with a large box labeled 'Meal Rep 65.' He set the box down and began handing out the packaged slop. It tasted fine, Jensen knew, but the texture was something akin to a extra thick warm milkshake—not Jensen's favorite, and as a result, he always had a lot left from the prepacked meals he bought on discount. Some of the people were looking at the units in confusion, stymied by the packaging, and Jensen surmised that they had never had emergency ration packs.

He activated the general hold communication.

"This is Captain Ackles. Mr. Padalecki, have you successfully received the rations?"

"Yeah. Yes, we have," Padalecki replied, looked around as Jensen's voice echoed through the room. Jensen zoomed in on to watch his frustration as he searched for words. "I am disappointed, Captain. I expected something a bit more . . . palatable."

"I understand. We will try to do better next time." As he spoke, Jensen saw one of the men motioning to Padalecki.

"Captain," Padalecki called out to the ceiling. "I had hoped to talk to you in person about a few issues."

"I see. That's not possible at this time." No way was Jensen going to risk himself or his crew in personal dealings with these people.

"I insist."

"I'll consider it," Jensen said. "Please return the box to the airlock when the rations have been distributed."

"Sure, Captain." Padalecki whispered to his coterie of followers.

Jensen frowned. He opened up a Meal Rep 65, grimaced as he sucked out the contents, and resigned himself keeping a close eye on the cargo hold.

Jensen drifted off to sleep at one point and when he woke, he found he had lost track of Padalecki. Jensen leaned closer, and continued to shift cameras. He found him just as Padalecki approached the communications panel.

"Captain?" Padalecki spoke into the panel. "All ready."

"Repeat that," Jensen said.

"The food crate is ready. It's in the lock."

"Okay, good. Make sure that the airlock is closed. My sensors are reading that someone is still there."

Jensen frowned at the instrumentation panel and switched camera angles. He stared at the hatchway, still wide open, and at the two passengers who were jamming something indiscernible into the closing mechanism. Jensen watched as Padalecki whispered to a couple of other people behind him and, frowning, Jensen increased the microphone sensitivity until he could pick up Padalecki's voice.

"Go. I'm staying here," Padalecki was saying. "Are they jammed?"

Someone with a heavy accent spoke, but the words were so garbled that Jensen couldn't make it out.

"No," Padalecki answered in a whisper, "I heard 'em talking. It won't depressurized this room. It just leads to another corridor. It's safe. We good?" Padalecki asked and the people around him nodded. "Okay, I'll tell him it's clear."

Then Padalecki raised his voice and spoke into the panel. "No the door is closed," he said.

"Are you absolutely sure?" Jensen asked, giving him a last chance to rethink his plan. "The airlock light should be on if it's sealed properly."

"I can see the light. It's on," Padalecki said with a grim smile, while he and another man flattened themselves against the walls of the airlock.

"Okay, must be a faulty sensor," Jensen said, and he muted the microphones. He paused a moment as he formulated a plan of his own. Kim and Jensen had temporarily switched to successive shifts in Command to ensure it was always covered, and she was currently in her sleep station.

"Kim," he said, and repeated it, twice.

"Mmmm?" she groaned. A moment later she appeared on the screen in front of him, bleary-eyed.

"Sorry," Jensen said, "but I need you here. I think we're going to have to shake 'em up."

"Huh?" She blinked at him.

"Command," he said simply. She nodded and the video link went dark.

He searched for Felicia's locator. He gave a small pleased smile when he saw her in the conditioning room, taking advantage of the temporary gravity to get in a workout during her down time. She was a quick learner.

"Felicia," he called. The music from her workout filled the small cabin. He activated the room's alert since she had taken out her earpiece communicator.

"Here," Kim said as she propelled herself through the Command hatch and slipped into her seat. "Give me the short version."

"We can't have escape attempts every time we need to feed them. There's too many. We need to take control. They need to know it."

Felicia once more had her earpiece in and was contacting him. "Captain?" She sounded a bit freaked, and he turned off the conditioning room alert.

"We're making a hard reverse spin," he told Felicia, and looked at Kim as he did so. "You need to either get back to Main Flight or strap in."

"Coming!" Felicia said.

"They'll need to get used to it before we leave anyway," he told Kim. "This is just. . . a bit less gradual. "

"Okay," Kim said. "What do you need?"

"Show Felicia what to do—on my signal, hard reverse rotation—and then join me at the C-tube."

 

"Now."

Jensen and Kim floated at the top of the Coriolis tube that joined the cargo hold to the Impala, when Felicia reversed the rotation, following to a T the sequence Kim had given her. Through the porthole, they saw the thrusters blink off, before they blinked on again, firing from the opposite direction to neutralize the spin. Jensen didn't wait for the maneuver to be completed. He gripped a handhold and let the weakening gravity tug him down the tube until his feet touched the landing pad, with Kim right behind. By the time they had unsealed the hold's airlock, they were weightless once more.

Screams came from the hold, and as he cracked the hatch open, he saw people, who had been pushed into a big pile by the change in motion, now flailing and clutching at anything they could, panicked and disoriented. While holding steady a short burst disruptor on the hatch opening, Jensen pushed himself through, appearing upside down compared to most of the passengers. It took no time for Jensen to efficiently propel a flailing Padalecki and his accomplice from the airlock into the cargo hold with the others. A quick shot with the burst disruptor jogged free the detritus that had wedged open the door and the hatch shut with a groan and hiss.

As soon as it was sealed, they made their way through the C-tube again, this time activating the motor assist to zip them along. Once back in Main Flight they rejoined Felicia in Command. Jensen reactivated the thrusters, gradually this time, which exerted a centrifugal force on the cargo hold once more.

"And?" Felicia asked. Jensen gave her a shit-eating grin and called up the cargo hold cameras. Everyone was picking themselves up and talking in small groups.

Jensen set a reduced spin this time. As he'd said to Kim, soon it would be competely gone. Still, everyone slid to the floor, and Jensen thought it fortunate that most people had managed to hold onto the built-in footrail on what they considered to be the floor (and which was more precisely the outer wall).

"That was a shitty thing to do," Kim said.

"Yeah," Jensen agreed, and gave her a sad smile. "But a show of force now will hopefully get everyone safely home. They were trying to take the ship, Kim." He held up a hand to forestall her comment. "And I'm not saying I wouldn't do the exact same thing if the positions were reversed!" He shrugged. "But they're not reversed, and it's my ship, and we have to get them all to their new settlement, hopefully without incident."

Bumps, bruises, and the abhorrent stench of vomit—the result of the sudden shift in gravity: Jensen felt it was an appropriate punishment for the attempted ambush. Only Padalecki, whom Jensen had launched rather forcefully into the room where he struck someone's foot, was hurt more seriously. And even then, Jensen thought with satisfaction, it was most likely just a nosebleed.

After a few minutes to let everyone take stock, Jensen opened the channel to the cargo hold. "Oops. Looks like that door wasn't closed after all! Sorry 'bout that. Must be an indicator malfunction. I'll fix it right away. We had a bit of a hiccough with the gravity. Hope everyone is okay."

Jensen watched as Padalecki was helped up. His nose bled profusely, and when Jensen zoomed in he wondered if it was at a bit of an angle. Padalecki appeared confused. Jensen tried not to feel guilty about the injury, since the man had, after all, planned to take his ship. He was damned lucky a possibly broken nose was the only repercussion.

"Get Padalecki to the airlock," Jensen told them, and saw those nearby look to the panel. "I'll get someone to escort him to the infirmary." He muted the hold again. "Felicia," he said. "Need you at the med station." He didn't miss the sag of Felicia's shoulders or her jutted chin of disapproval, nor did he miss Kim's intentionally obvious biting of her tongue. He sighed.

 

The next time that the hatch opened into the hold, no one came near it.

Jensen stood there with a short burst disruptor casually in his hand, and he motioned for Jared to come forward. Padalecki eyed him suspiciously eyes, and even more so when Jensen motioned for everyone else to back away. Jensen's adrenaline kicked in with potential enemies in such proximity, but he knew Kim was keeping a close eye on things, and gravity play was not the only trick that the Impala had up her sleeve.

Still, Padalecki's muscle mass dwarfed Jensen's. Jensen couldn't block the memory of his father's voice. "Never go toe to toe with anyone planet-side in any gravity environment. Jensen! Listen up, boy. They'll beat you to a pulp without even trying. Hit 'em from behind, hard, right here, and take the win. That honor crap people spew will get you dead."

Jensen closed the hatch and motioned for Padalecki to exit the other side of the airlock. Keeping the disruptor on him, Jensen said, "Grab it," and motioned him to grab the handhold on the C-tube. Moving quickly, Jensen slapped a cuff on him, locking his wrists to the handhold, and sprung back. Padalecki glared at him as blood streamed down his chin, and while Jensen didn't understand the names he was being called, the meaning came through clearly. Without another word, Jensen activated the motor assist and watched as Padalecki was taken up.

"Felicia, he's on his way." Jensen said, and he followed.

The downward force weakened and shifted as he travelled the length of the tube, and when he stopped, he was weightless. Felicia kept her gun trained on the large flailing man, and Jensen used Padalecki's disorientation to recuff his hands behind him. Padalecki's shaggy long hair floated free in a soft spiky halo around him. The whites of his eyes were visible, and a blob of blood was slowly growing in front of his face. The blood, no longer able to drip or be wiped away, simply pooled, held by surface tension. It welled up around his nose and shifted in a jiggling blob when he moved. Soon, Jensen thought, it would cover his eyes and Padalecki wouldn't be able to see.

With little pushes, pulls, and small direction changes, Jensen propelled Padalecki through the hatch ahead of him, pushed him sideways through a corridor, and tugged him down yet another corridor. Jensen guided him through the medical station hatchway tethered him to the wall with his hands still cuffed behind him. Jensen considered the growing blob of blood covering Padalecki's face before he reached up and snagged an absorbent bandage. He pressed it against the man's face, careful of his nose, and it immediately began wicking away the blood. Jensen let go, and the bandage remained stuck to Padalecki's face. Felicia entered the room and put the gun aside as she approached. Jensen didn't miss the interest the injured man took in the weapon.

"Okay, let's see that nose," Felicia said to Padalecki, but she looked at Jensen first. Jensen nodded and watched Felicia carefully wet a cloth with a ball of water from a portable water bag. She wiped the blood from Padalecki's face, making sure not to put too much pressure on his hurt nose. She tutted after she passed the scanner over it, and Padalecki bit back a cry as she shifted the nose into place and taped it down. Jensen glided to the freezer and took out a cold compress for Padalecki to apply to his nose, while ensuring that he always had an eye trained on Padalecki. For his part, the large man returned the stare.

"Return this to the locker," Jensen told Felicia as he handed her weapon back. "He and I have a few things to clear up."

She nudged his elbow as she passed and whispered, "Be nice."

The tall shaggy-haired man no longer held himself so rigidly, and hadn't made any provocative gestures since Jensen had taken him away from the group. Jensen had known a couple people like that: pleasant as anything on their own, but with other people around, they were the devil's own ringmaster. Jensen unlocked the man's cuffs to see what the man would do, and he drifted back to put some distance between them. Padalecki brought a hand up to prod at Felicia's work.

"How's the nose?" Jensen asked.

"Fuck you." Padalecki pushed himself toward Jensen and swung wildy. It didn't come close to hitting, and Padalecki managed only to spin himself around.

Jensen let the corner of one side of his mouth curl up in a bitter half-smile. He hated when his dad was right. When Padalecki drifted within reach, Jensen bounced him into the wall, effortlessly wedging his foot into a foothold, bracing himself solidly even as Padalecki foundered, unable to get his body to move right.

"Fight smart," his father had said, after smashing a much younger Jensen into the wall during what passed for training. "The conditioning chamber—even if you do it non-stop, you'll never match their muscle mass. Those idiots on station might prattle on about supplements and training, but they're idiots. You will not win that sort of fight. Know your weakness. Establish yourself as top dog right away and never let up."

Jensen stood still, unmoving. Padalecki's next attempt, a powerful roundhouse, hit Jensen like a mild tap but sent Jared careening head over heels to crash into the other side of the room again. Jensen hadn't moved. He watched the last minute surprise on Padalecki's face when he realized that Jensen hadn't as much as flinched, and planned to absorb the blow despite their relative difference in physique. Jensen felt a unsurprising amount of satisfaction when Padalecki's eyes widened at the kick's unintended effect.

"Are you done?" Jensen asked, calm, unflappable; he knew he was dominating the room. "We can keep it up, if you want. It's amusing, so that's fine with me. I'm a fan of slapstick."

"Fuck you!" Jared shouted again from his side of the room.

"This is my ship. I give the orders," Jensen said with a small smirk. "Make it a request and I'll consider it." Jensen could well imagine Kim's retort if she knew he was flirting with the man. It didn't look as though Padalecki understood Jensen's meaning at first, but once he clued in, he seemed startled and his body tried to take a step back, which destabilised him again. A lot of emotions flashed across his face, but anger was first and foremost. Jensen kept his face blank, and didn't let the disappointment show. It was to be expected. It would be unwise, fraternizing with the . . . cargo.

Then the fight seemed to drain out of Padalecki. He turned his head to wipe the blood out of his eyes. Jensen watched him for a bit and only the faint ever-present hiss of the air exchangers could be heard.

"You done yet?" Jensen asked. Padalecki still didn't speak, but Jensen was encouraged by the nod. "Okay," he continued, "here's how it's going to work. I was hired to take you out of here and to a colony on Bardock. What I saw back there? That gets people killed."

Padalecki glared at him out of his blood-streaked face. Jensen met the glare with one of his own and continued.

"I hated using that gravity trick. Don't make me have to do it again." Padalecki's glare had diminished somewhat as he looked around. "And when I asked for a representative, I was serious. This is a two week jaunt, and I want it to be painless for everyone. I need to know people's concerns, if someone is sick, that sort of thing, but I can't be talking to everyone, I just don't have time."

Padalecki stopped surveying the room as if he were cataloguing everything, and returned to glaring at Jensen. He didn't speak for a long few minutes.

"Why," Padalecki said. "Why do this? What did we ever do?" And to Jensen's surprise, Padalecki began crying. When the tears pooled up around his eyes enough to prevent him seeing, he savagely wiped them away. The flung droplets of water drifted through the room, slowly changing their trajectory and moving sideways to be eventually taken in by the air exchanger and diverted to the water recycling system, where they would be purified and added again into the water supply. Jensen knew he'd be drinking those tears in about two hours.

Padalecki continued sobbing quietly, and Jensen watched the movement of his shoulders and the occasional flicking away of teardrops. He shifted uncomfortably, not at all used to being in this position.

"Why did you do this to us?" Padalecki asked again, in a wrecked voice. "And now Adrianne . . ."

"Hey, it's going to be okay, man," Jensen said, stilted and awkward, and Padalecki snapped at him.

"Go to hell! This is your fucking fault!" He threw the balled-up bloody cloth across the room, and this time the motion only bounced him back a little.

"Clue me in?" Jensen asked. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You promised! Promised that families would stay together!'

"I did no such thing! I never even talked to any of you until you came onboard, so whatever your issue is, don't put this crap on me."

"You're all the same!" Jared waved his hand encompassing Jensen, and the Impala. "You came, destroyed everything, took us away! And you! You liar!" Padalecki yelled. "She was here, she was _here_ and you sent her away! _You_ did that."

Jensen clenched his teeth against the unfairness of the accusation and made himself listen to what Padalecki was saying. "Are you talking about the people we had to turn away?"

"You dragged her away! After you all promised! And she told me to take care of her father, and now he's dead." Jared's voice had trailed off into a whisper.

"I didn't kill anyone! No one died!"

"In the shuttle—the takeoff. She doesn't even know."

"Listen, Padalecki—"

"Jared."

"Whatever. Jared. I didn't promise anything!" Jensen tried to keep his voice calm, regulated, but thought he might not have succeeded. "I'm not a friggin' part of the government; I'm a bloody cargo ship captain!"

"She was here, with me. And they took her away. Because _you_ told them to."

"Damn it," Jensen muttered to himself. "This is why I haul freight." Jared, caught up in his grief, didn't hear him. Jensen tongued open his labret and quietly said "Kim" to get her attention. Then he addressed Jared again. "What's her name?"

"What?"

"Her name. I'll see if I can find out what ship she's on."

"Jensen, what are you doing?" Kim's caution rang in his earpiece as he watched the anger fade a bit and a spark of interest light up Jared's still bloodshot eyes.

"Adrianne?" It was more a question than a statement, as if Jared found it unlikely that Jensen would be willing to help him. "Palicki."

"Okay," Jensen said, and he repeated it, to Jared's nod. "I'll see what we can find for you." Kim sighed in his ear and he closed the link. "But you. You can't pull any of that crap from before."

Jared's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're watching us."

"Of course I am," Jensen said. "So here's what's happening: we're walking back to rejoin the others. You will step up and help me keep everyone happy and healthy, and I will see about reuniting you with your girl."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." And as they made their slow way back, with Jared occasionally flailing in the free-fall, Jensen refused to think about the promise that he had just made and might not be able to keep.


	4. The Promise: Unwanted

"What are you doing, Ackles?" Kim challenged him as soon as he entered the Command Module.

"What?"

"Padalecki."

Jensen looked away.

"In case you're interested," she glared her disapproval, "the fiancée is on Osric's ship, and he's heading for Bardock too. You're damn lucky. And stupid." She shook her head and turned back to her screen. "And Jensen? Don't make any more promises."

Jensen nodded. "Just trying to get his cooperation."

"Yeah, well, if we hadn't been able to find her, you'd have made an even further mess of it."

"But then he'd be off my ship, and someone else's problem."

"Bullshit. You know I don't buy the macho crap, so quit trying to sell it."

Jensen reddened and turned away. He was saved from further conversation by the sound of an incoming communication. They both looked over at the display. Kim pursed her lips and looked at Jensen when she saw it came from the planetary government. Jensen accepted communication.

"Impala-2Y5," he answered.

"Impala-2Y5, this is the Newstart Planetary Traffic Control. Please be advised that your flight plan is accepted and you are to leave planetary orbit within the hour for the Bardock station."

Jensen gaped at Kim, and knew his eyes must be equally wide and disbelieving.

"What the hell?" he whispered to Kim, and then raised his voice to reply. "Please repeat."

"I filed the plan, that's it," Kim told him, as the message repeated. "I didn't request to leave."

Jensen frowned as the message finished again, and thought a minute before he sent his reply. "Does that mean the promised supply ship will arrive within the hour?"

"No. You will be issued a supply credit at Bardock station," the flat voice said.

Jensen kept his face calm, but Kim shook her head emphatically.

"No! We can't—"

"I'm sorry, Newstart Control, we cannot leave without the promised resupply."

There was a longer than normal pause. "Impala-2Y5, are you unable to fulfill the contract?"

Jensen grimaced and muted the cabin's microphones. "Fuck!" he yelled.

Kim shook her head in anger. "Those fucking—"

"We don't have a choice."

"What?" Kim had shifted from angry to incredulous.

"The upgrades wiped out most of my credits and if we don't take this, I can't buy enough fuel to get to the next nearest commerce port. Let alone what it would do to my business reputation." He pretended not to see her shaking her head. "Felicia!" he called. He spun around in surprise when she poked her head through the hatch above him.

"Yeah?"

"The emergency rations you counted. Does your count match the computer tally?"

"Pretty close. Only 16 units off."

He nodded, and then he sighed and opened communications again with Newstart Control. "There's no problem. We're getting ready to leave orbit."

He looked at Felicia who was looking from one to the other in confusion. Kim had set her jaw and didn't object out loud, but Jensen knew she'd have choice words for him when she could no longer hold it in. "Get it done," he said. "We're leaving."

"Attention, passengers," Jensen said, and grimaced at the sound of his voice resonating through the ship. On the monitor, everyone in the cargo hold froze and looked up. "We've been instructed to leave for Bardock Station within the hour. I apologize for the short notice."

Felicia snorted and muttered, "That's what you're apologizing for? Not the gravity thing or taking them away from their homes?" Jensen gave her a hard look and she stared steadily back. Kim closed her eyes with a sigh, and made a "get on with it" motion with her hands.

"In preparation to leave, we will be shutting down the rotation, although more gradually than last time. You'll feel a slight pull towards the side wall, and a slow reduction in gravity. There will be no gravity for the duration of the trip. Should you need to hurl, grab the little bags tucked by the airlock and use the suction hoses from the mobile toilets to prevent it from going everywhere. Thanks."

"What?" he asked Felicia. But she just shook her head and refused to comment.

"It's fine, Jensen," Kim said.

Kim's friendly bump to the shoulder dislodged Jensen from the monitor he'd been watching before he expertly shifted his body and steadied himself with a toe along the wall.

"Stare at Jared too long and you'll go blind. Isn't that the saying?" she said, with a grin. Then she lost the smile. "You need to stop this before you get hurt. You're stupidly besotted, and he's pining for his future bride!"

"I'm not—"

"You are. Or am I going to look and not see Jared?"

Jensen stopped his automatic movement to intercept her as she glanced down and saw Jared, as close-up as that particular camera would allow. Kim smiled at Jared's onscreen antics as he entertained a group of children, before she looked up at Jensen, who hated the guilty flush he could feel in his cheeks. He could look at whoever he damn well wanted!

She must have read something of his thoughts on his face, because she shrugged. and backed off. "Seriously though, you and Jared . . . " She shook her head. "It doesn't end well."

Kim returned to her discussion of slowdown procedures with Felicia, but Jensen wasn't really paying attention. Jared filled his screen, and Jensen watched the man entertain a roomful of children with yet another story, dramatically portrayed with the help of rolled up socks and a hat.

Jared's first request after his and Jensen's throw down in the Med unit had taken Jensen by surprise.

"We want to make a list of everyone, to make it easier to get the families back together when we land," Jared had said. Most of the children were missing a parent, some were missing both, Jared had explained, as he requested a piece of paper and a pen. He's been surrounded by a gaggle of floating children, some hanging upside down and holding onto his hair. The first time Jensen had seen the new look it had taken his breath away. He'd have given anything to have met Jared at a station somewhere instead of in these miserable circumstances. Jared's wild ball of hair was now tied back at the nape of his neck with a ribbon (red with pink hearts), courtesy of one of the children, Jensen assumed.

Later, Jensen had met Jared in the airlock and had given him the paper, but instead of a pen, Jensen had handed him two china marker stubs that were too small to be used as a weapon of any significance. Jared had accepted the crayons without comment. And Jensen soon found himself watching the hold monitors, less because he was concerned about an uprising, and more just to see Jared.

"And then you need to orient the adapters to compensate," Kim was saying to Felicia. "But it'll only work on planetary bodies with a significant magnetic field. Most planets aren't strong enough so you have to plan a pinball carefully to get the speed down before engaging the main thrusters. Wastes less fuel."

"You're not pinballing it here?" Felicia asked.

"No, not as much as we usually do. But see here? These two moons will slow us down some, and then they bend us over this way. We'd usually add a few more direction bends, but I talked it over with Jensen and we decided to spend the extra fuel on a quicker deceleration. Get everyone home faster."

Felicia stared at the charts some more before she nodded. "So what's the approach procedure?"

"Well . . ."

Jensen tuned them out again. Jared seemed to be telling the grand finish of his story, and his props now included a floating child that he was spinning round in front of him and he spoke with grand gestures.

Jensen yawned as he checked their position on the charts. Exactly as it should be. He, Kim, and Felicia had agreed to staggered shifts in Command. There was little to do until deceleration since the shipboard computer was a far better distance navigator than a manual pilot. Many pilots opted to leave the Command Module empty until they were closer to their target, as Jensen used to until a particularly harrowing incident the year before Tim left. Jensen now always had someone manning Command.

A chime from the hold monitor brought a smile to Jensen's face. Jared had become a welcome distraction from the tedium. Jensen had synched the lights in the hold to Newstart's rotation, and they were now into their nocturnal cycle. Most of the passengers rested in the tethered sleeping bags, and some groups had unclipped the tether to loosely hook themselves together and drifted. Jensen frowned as he heard people coughing. Jared had mentioned that a couple people had the flu, though Jensen had suspected it was probably space sickness—not everyone adapted well to weightlessness—and Jensen had brought him something to give them for fever. But this sounded like more than just a couple people. It was good that their stop was fast approaching; the station would be better equipped to deal with sick people.

He could just barely make out Jared on the dark screen.

"Hey Jared. Can't sleep?"

"No. Richard snores. If I have to elbow him one more time I think he's gonna take a swing."

Jensen chuckled. He'd find it amusing watching a planetsider brawl without gravity, except that he'd be the one obligated to break up that mess.

"Sure, laugh at my misfortune," Jared said with a broad smile that did something interesting to Jensen's insides. Jensen felt his face freeze, and saw Jared's smile fall away as Jared's offhand comment about misfortune brought their situation front and center yet again.

"Any news of Adrianne?" Jared asked after a moment.

Jensen shook his head, then realized Jared probably didn't see him in the low light of the Command Module any better than Jensen could see him in the low light of the hold.

"No. Like I said, there's no reliable communication in transit. Osric and the Prophet left orbit shortly before we did, and we're all heading to Bardock, so once we're there, I'm sure she'll be looking for you."

Jared nodded. "Yeah, okay. Thanks." He was quiet for a moment. "You have a girl waiting?"

"Nope. Just me and my baby, " Jensen waved a hand to encompass the Impala.

"Oh." Jared paused before continuing. "How did you become Captain? You seem kind of young."

"My dad left it to me when he died." And to Jensen's shock, he actually found himself himself telling far more to Jared than he had told anyone. In return, Jared shared his hopes for a future with Adrianne, and of their parents' delight with his engagement to the daughter of their long-time friends.

"It was never really a question. Wasn't a big place, and . . . I don't know, everyone always just sort of knew that we would be together," Jared said, and Jensen thought it interesting how much thicker his Newstart accent got when he thought of home. "She's my best friend, smart as a whip, nicest person you'd ever meet, and _gorgeous_ . . . the drop-dead kind of gorgeous, you know? All my friends were so jealous—" He huffed a laugh. "When they weren't making fun of me."

"Making fun?"

"Yeah, for not . . . well. We'd decided to wait," Jared said, and he looked down.

The light precluded his knowing for sure, but Jensen would bet that Jared was blushing. Jensen blinked in confusion and knew he was missing something. "Wait for what?"

"To wait. You know." Jared must have sensed his incomprehension because he continued with an embarrassed little laugh. "For sex."

"What?" Jensen couldn't stop the incredulous laugh. "Why would you do that?"

Jared said seem nonplussed. "It's a sign of how much we love each other. And stuff."

Jensen had never heard of such a ridiculous custom. He shrugged and tempered his laugh down to a smirk. "All right," he said.

"Oh, shut up." Jared said. And, like with most of their conversations, Jensen was able to forget that Jared was anything other than a new friend.

"Easy does it," Jensen said. Felicia grunted in acknowledgement and Jensen felt a jarring thump as the docking clamps seized the ship. Felicia smiled wide, and in the background Kim shook her head. Jensen surreptitiously took his hands off the override controls that he hadn't needed to use. "Told you," Jensen said. "Flying a ship is nothing special."

"And if anyone on the station knew he let you do that, without a recognized apprenticeship, we'd be permanently banned from the station," Kim informed her as she filed the paperwork for deboarding.

Felicia looked at Jensen in surprise and he grinned and shrugged.

"Well, I'm not going to tell them," he said.

"Jensen? There's a problem." A flashing yellow alert had shown up on Kim's display, and with one push Jensen was at her side. "They've denied us permission." Her fingers flew and she called up another screen.

"But how did they know?" Felicia had paled.

"What?"

"About me piloting?"

Jensen shook his head. "No, this is something different. Kim, get the stationmaster."

Without stopping Kim said, in her most sarcastic tone, "No! You think?"

Jensen bit back a reply and settled for a quelling look that had no effect at all.

"Bardock Station, Gabe here." The voice sounded unusually young and unsure and there was no video. Great new staff. Jensen frowned.

"Yeah, this is Impala-2Y5, and we're here to drop off your new colonists, but there seems—"

The kid didn't let him finish. "Sorry, the station's closed to new visitors."

"What?" Jensen said. "No, get me the stationmaster."

"Sorry, she's busy."

Jensen was fast losing patience. "Listen, kid, I was hired to deliver a bunch of people to Bardock and—"

"Well maybe someone should have thought to tell _us_!" Gabe shouted. "Sure, we took the first few ships that arrived. But we're at capacity. You can't talk to the stationmaster because she's busy trying to figure out how to stretch supplies to feed a fucking thousand people she didn't know were coming! You want to know how we're going to do that? Well, so the fuck do we! You guys just march them off the ships and take off. What the hell? No. The station is closed!"

Jensen gaped at the black screen.

"Wh—what am I supposed to do with them?" he said, trying to come up with some sort of plan. "I was supposed to bring them here."

"Not our problem. Try Metwrk-2."

Jensen voice hardened. "If you check your records, you'll see we have station credit. We're short of supplies: food, water, air. We can't make it to the outer system stations. We need to dock. Now." Gabe didn't answer. After a few seconds with no response, Jensen turned to Kim. "Do you think—"

"Captain!" Felicia shouted as she stared wide-eyed at the sensor readings.

Red and amber alerts flashed across every panel. With a single push, Jensen turned and zipped to the other side of the module, wedging his foot under a foothold for stability. He reached up and activated a ship-wide alarm. Lights dimmed everywhere but the Command module, as power was diverted from all but the emergency lighting. The hatches throughout the ship began to close automatically and the heavy click and hiss of the hatch seals could be heard from the corridor until even that sound was cut off by the seal of the Command hatch. As the ship was locked down, each module became a closed system, running on temporary backup life support.

After thirty seconds the alarm stopped blaring, though the pulsing lights continued.

"Bardock Station," Jensen said, voice calm, despite his coursing adrenalin. "Our sensors are reading a target lock. Please advise." As he spoke, he pushed himself to the next console display and continued activating emergency protocols, while Kim called up the navigational data as a holographic 3D model. She quickly highlighted system defenses and potential hazards.

"The passengers!" Felicia said. Jensen spared a glance at the muted monitor display for the cargo hold. Everyone was screaming and pounding at the large doors that had automatically descended to bisect the large space, which was now sealed tight. The compartmental design of the Impala, though bulky, effectively minimized loss of life should an attack breach part of the ship. The passengers might be panicked, but they were safe. It hadn't occurred to him to review the emergency hold lockdown procedure with them.

He saw Jared stride towards the camera, and soon his angry face filled the screen and he appeared to be yelling at them. Jensen didn't have time for that right now.

"They're secure?" he asked Felicia, without stopping.

"Yes, but—"

"Good."

"But they're scared, and they don't know what's going on!" Felicia continued. Jensen thought she sounded a bit freaked as well. With good reason. He acknowledged her concern with a curt nod, finished one last task, and activated the ship-wide speakers.

"Attention," he said, and his voice boomed out through the ship. He spoke loud enough to be heard through the cacaphony of the hold, and he saw people begin shouting for everyone to be quiet. "The Impala is now under emergency lockdown due to an external threat. Please find a handhold and secure yourselves as best you can. We are working to resolve the situation, but prepare for sudden impact." Then he shut off the speakers and diverted all his attention to making those preparations unnecessary.

He ignored Felicia's muttered, "I don't think that's much better." He wasn't a friggin' tour guide.

"I shifted energy distribution to the generator," he called out. "Kim?"

"Hang on," she said, as she activated the last of her sequence. "Main thrusters can engage within twelve. Docking is still extended. At this distance a short burst will rip off the docking module and maybe damage corridor four."

"Acceptable," Jensen said with grim nod. Then he hailed the station again. "Be aware that should we be fired upon, I have programmed the Impala to immediately engage its main T-thrusters." Jensen said nothing further.

"What happens if we turn on the engine this close to the spaceport?" Felicia whispered to Kim.

Kim looked at Jensen, as she answered with pointed, faked nonchalance. "Oh, that. It's a classic thermonuclear engine, so—this close and on this type of station—maybe a few hundred die from sudden radiation, and a few thousand from complications down the road . . . but we're fully shielded, so we'll be fine." When Felicia stared at her in horror she added. "There's a reason we always shut down main engines before we make our approach."

Jensen returned to staring at the communications display. He compulsively tapped his finger against his thigh.

The flashing lights stopped and he leaned forward to double-check the sensor readings. Then he smiled. An incoming message from the station chimed. Jensen gave a relieved exhale before acknowledging the station.

"You will not be permitted to dock," Gabe's voice contained a mixture of tightly reined-in hysteria and a good dose of anger.

"Yeah, I got that," Jensen said. He clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to be calm. "We need an O2 top-up."

"I said—"

"I know what you said!" Jensen shouted. "But we can't leave without oxygen!" He took a breath and continued in a calmer voice. "Water too. I might be able to stretch the food," he said, ignoring Felicia's wide-eyed head shaking.

Gabe's reply was a long-time coming. "We can spare three standard oxygen refills. And two water."

From the corner of his eye, he saw Kim wince. Felicia came closer to look at the life support readings over his shoulder.

Jensen pinched his lips together and looked at Kim, turning to include Felicia in the discussion. "Kim, I need a course for the closest berth, I think it's Metwrk-2 like that asshole suggested, but let's be sure. Felicia, I also need to know exactly where we stand on consumables. Stir the tanks, triple check the levels, do a manual count, whatever. We'll have to stretch it out somehow."

Felicia just stared at him a moment, before she said, "Fuck!" and soared through the aftward hatch towards Bio-Support.

He and Kim stared at each other. When the station sent their latest communication a second time, Jensen finally replied. "Agreed," he said, simply.

"There go showers," Kim said, once the Gabe had ended communications. "With two standard refills, if we start conservation measures immediately, we should be okay for water."

"And oxygen," Jensen said, nodding at the calculations he had done, "but the margins are tight."

"Back in two weeks, huh?" Kim said.

Jensen grimaced. "It'll work out. Just a snag." He sighed. "Now I have to talk to Jared."

"What the hell is going on?" Jared asked, and gone was the friendly giant Jensen had been getting to know. This was the Jared he had first met, full of anger and hostility.

"Bardock Station is not letting us dock."

Jared's brow crunched together. "So we're leaving by shuttle?"

"Not exactly. There's been a complication, so we're going to move on to the next station."

"Where?"

"Metwrk-2."

"Where the hell is that?"

"It's mostly a mining station, but it gets heavy traffic, so—"

"Adrianne? What about Adrianne?"

Jensen suppressed a wince. Of course that's what he'd want to know. He activated a line to Kim. "Can you check on Jared's girl?"

He couldn't make out her muttering and figured it was just as well.

"Well," she said after a moment. "There's no record of her on the station. Some ships landed but . . . . shit, Jensen, these records are a mess. Give me a sec."

"Sure," Jensen said, but Kim had already cut off.

"Jensen?" Jared asked. Jensen watched him chew his lip every now and then as he waited.

"Just checking now." Jensen said

Kim came back. "The station claims Osric landed but was sent away, and I can't get anything else useful from them. They're insisting we leave right away."

"Jared, Adrianne's ship landed, but it looks like they were sent off too."

Jared's eyes flashed his worry. "Well . . . well, how will we—"

"Like us, he'll probably be heading for the nearest port. That's Metwrk-2. Tell everyone to ready for acceleration again."

"We haven't eaten—"

"I know, and we can't get to it now, but as soon as we're away from Bardock's space I'll bring you something."

Jared seemed neither pleased nor reassured, but there was nothing else Jensen could do.

Felicia poked her head and shoulders into Jensen's quarters, after giving a perfunctory knock. He cocked an eye open and waited.

"Jared's asking for you," she said. "Says he wants a face-to-face meeting." Jensen groaned, but fumbled his sleep-heavy limbs out of his floating sleeping bag.

Jensen entered the airlock first, and opened the hold's hatchway for Jared.

"What the hell is this?" Jared demanded, before he had even floated inside

 

"It's been a long shift." Jensen allowed some of his exhaustion to seep through. "You'll have to be more specific."

"Fine." Jared drew himself up, righteous indignation overflowing. "Let me be specific," he bit off the words. "The rations today—and yesterday—won't feed half of us. What the hell!"

"Like I said, there were complications at Bardock, and we were unable to resupply," Jensen said. "And we have another week before we arrive."

"This is not acceptable!"

Jensen said nothing. Jared gritted his teeth, and Jensen thought the man might hit him. In a confined area like the airlock, where Jared could easily brace himself, Jensen had no chance of winning an altercation. He let his hand drift downward to where he had a concealed stunner. Something that small wouldn't do a lot, but it would be enough to turn the situation to Jensen's favor. Jensen was relieved when Jared got a handle on his anger and managed to ask, with a veneer of politeness. "Could you please increase the rations."

"No," Jensen said, and as Jared took a breath to begin yelling, Jensen continued, talking over him. "Not that I don't want to! I _can't_. There is not enough food at full rations! We didn't expect to be continuing; you were supposed to get off at Bardock. We also will be tightly rationing water. No washing stations. Keep it for drinking only." Jared sputtered, but Jensen went on. "I suggest you divvy up the rations based on need. Pregnant or nursing women, children . . ."

Jared just stared at him. Jensen shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "There is no more. I've sent a message to Metwrk-2 to let them know the situation. I'm sorry."

As Jared exited the chamber, he asked tightly, "And your crew, are they getting half-rations too?"

Jensen closed the airlock door without answering.

"They're angry." Kim nodded towards the muted screen where people were waving arms and yelling at Jared.

"Yeah."

"Captain," Felicia asked. "What he asked. About us rationing our own food. We aren't."

"No," Jensen said. "There are a lot of them. We're three. And if we're not on our game, we risk losing control of things. Out of everyone here, the ones who are capable of steering us out of this mess need to be the ones who are sharp. So yeah, I didn't cut our food." He could tell Felicia didn't like this. Kim shifted and adjusted her jacket, but seemed resigned to the necessity.

"It's not right," Felicia said.

"It's my decision. I don't want a weakened navigator sending us into an oort cloud!" He watched her wrap up half of her ration bar, and grabbed her retreating shoulder and pulled her back into the module. Then he unwrapped the half-eaten bar. "These are not suggestions. We're not splurging and sitting down to a daily feast. These are balanced meal packets, to ensure you can function," he reminded her. "Eating them is non-negotiable." He threw a glance to Kim as well, although as a long-time spacer she knew the score. "You are my crew, and I am responsible for everyone's safety. You are helping manage the life support systems, for fuck's sake! I don't want you passing out and switching off our fucking air! Sit. Eat."

Felicia trembled with the need to argue, but didn't. She forced down the disgusting meal packet without meeting his eye, and left without a word as soon as she was done.

"Harsh, Captain," Kim said.

"She needs to understand—"

"It's the tone, Jensen. Don't take your frustrations out on us."

"But I didn't . . ." He clenched his eyes closed and let out a noisy breath.

"Go get some sleep," Kim told him. "You need it." She had turned back to her console and was no longer paying attention.

"I’m the friggin' captain," he muttered, but he left the Command Module.

"Better?" Kim asked him when he reemerged after a few hours' sleep.

"Yeah."

"Super. I'm done," she said, and surprised herself with a yawn. "Go find Felicia and then come take Command."

"Felicia?"

"Haven't seen her since she bolted out of here. She's not answering my calls."

"Why didn't you—"

"I thought she could use some time. There's nothing urgent going on or I would have woken you."

"Okay," Jensen said. "I'll find her."

 

Kim called to him as he went down the hall corridor. "And when you apologize, don't add a 'but' onto the end!"

The ship was a decent size, but there were only a limited number of places she could be that wouldn't register on the motion sensors. He found her in the first place he checked. From the outside, the observation room looked like nothing so much as a circular glass doughnut that curved around the ship. She was floating with her forehead resting against the glass, and she looked out towards the brightest star visible from their current location.

"Hey! We were wondering where you were," he said, as he stopped next to her. She didn't return the greeting. He tried again."What do you see?" he asked her.

She cast her eyes his way but remained expressionless when she said, "A large pink bunny."

"A . . .what? What the hell is a bunny?"

"Rodent, herbivore, big ears. They're an invasive species," she said, distracted by the stars again.

"And they're spacefaring? And pink?" Jensen searched the darkness but saw no trace of the potential threat. "That makes no sense."

Her smile was sad. "I'm making up constellations. My dad and I used to do it all the time." Jensen blinked at her, and tried to reconcile his memories of Timothy, galactic carouser extraordinaire, with the image of a father who created silly nonsense shapes for his child.

"What do you see?" she asked, not taking her eyes away from the dark expanse.

Jensen cocked his head to the side and tried, really tried, to see something worth mentioning. Then he shrugged. "Just space, distance, time."

"No." She gave him a small tap with her elbow and he absently put out a hand to stop the drift. "Make something up."

Jensen winced. "Why? It . . . it's just not something we do," he said, trying to imagine his family, the large group he'd been a part of for most of his childhood, sitting around making pictures in the stars. He looked around. "I can point out the systems, some quadrants that we need to avoid because of the debris fields. It's a just large 3D map that's always changing. And without the computer it's impossible to navigate." He squinted. "Where the hell do you see an animal?"

Her laugh was nothing more than a small puff of air, but he'd managed to get a shaky smile. She moved behind him, put her head close to his, and turned his head so that he was looking in the right area.

"Right there. See that brighter area?"

"The gas cloud?"

"That's his eye."

Jensen just nodded and tilted his head, trying to see how the hell that could be an eye.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

Jensen didn't bother pretending he didn't know what she was talking about. His thoughts had strayed often to Tim recently.

"Yeah." he said.

Her shoulders shook as she floated, still looking out at her rabbit.

"I left him," she said, and her voice was muffled by her hands. Jensen strained to hear her whisper. "He was dying and I left him." Her voice broke again and Jensen ventured a tentative arm over her shoulder. She turned into him, and he felt a surge of protectiveness. He'd lost his best friend and Felicia had lost her father, and neither of them had great track records at dealing with emotional stuff.

Jensen cleared his throat. "He knew, and he understood. He told me that he was proud of you, and he thought that you leaving was the right thing. He said to tell you that he loved you. He said not to do this, not to feel bad."

"I knew but I didn't know, you know." she said. Jensen wasn't really sure what she was talking about, but he nodded anyway. "I was so angry that he was going to let it go, just like that. I was so stupid!"

"No." Although it was still shaky, Jensen's voice had firmed up. This he was sure about. "Your dad would have hated to have you see him like that, at the end. You both knew what was coming. Your dad. . ." Jensen broke into a smile at the memory. "Let me tell you about Timmy. About five years ago—well, maybe about 30 years back for him—he and I had taken a vacation planet-side after a long friggin' run, and we . . . "


	5. The Promise: Crowding

"Jensen?" Jared said, with a new hesitation in his voice. The renewed awkwardness with Jared sucked, but Jensen wasn't going to explain every decision he needed to make in order to get everyone home safely.

Jared's face filled the screen and he spoke softly. Just for a moment, Jensen could pretend that Jared intended the intimacy it brought, that it was just for him and Jensen and not because everyone else in the hold was trying to sleep. Jensen watched an escaped strand of Jared's hair that floated off to the side and Jensen itched to fix it for him.

"I'm here," Jensen said as he stared at Jared.

"We didn't say anything before, because we thought we would be landing," Jared said.

"What's happened?" Jensen asked, giving Jared's words his full attention.

"People with the flu, floating around," Jared said, and Jensen didn't miss the touch of bitterness in his voice. Jared grimaced. "It's everywhere." He lifted up his hands and gestured at himself. "There's no avoiding it. People are coughing, vomiting. . . We're sucking up the floating bits with the little toilet hose as best we can, but it's not enough. We could use some soap and water, and—I don't know—maybe bleach."

"Bleach won't be happening. Cleaners like that aren't used in spaceflight."

"It really stinks. And it's making people sick," Jared protested.

"Yeah, I get it. And I might be able to change the carbon filter to take some of that out, but we're in a closed system here. It takes time for the smells to be removed," Jensen said. "I'm not going to contaminate our bubble of breathable air with caustic fumes. There are procedures for sanitization, but . . . let me talk to Kim and see what we can do."

Jensen closed the communication with Jared and turned to Kim on his right.

"I heard my name?" she said, and she cocked a questioning eyebrow.

"A couple of people are sick. But we'd need to empty the hold to sanitize, and there's no room elsewhere to put everyone."

"What about the smaller cargo hold on the other side?" Kim asked. She brought a hand to her temple as she looked over the Impala's schematics. "It would be a tight fit, but if it's only while we clean it out, that's possible."

"The air system's not retrofitted for live cargo in that one. It's fine for us to come and go when we need to access it, but that many people . . ." Jensen shook his head. "No. It's a crowd control issue too. The three of us can't move that many people across the ship. It's too big a risk if they decide not to cooperate. We wouldn't be able to get them back into containment."

"I hate this job! Have I mentioned that?" She closed the screen with a forceful jab of her finger and looked around, gritting her teeth as if at a loss for something to throw—at him, at the Impala, maybe at herself. Jensen understood the impulse.

"A few hundred times, yeah. I feel the same, if it's any help."

"Not really."

Jensen drummed his fingers on his leg as he spoke. "We have enough water until Metwrk, so I'll increase the water allowance and provide hand sanitizer. It won't do much, but at least it's something. I'll take Jared aside and show him the proper way to wash in space, so they don't waste it. Oh, stop it!" he added, before Kim could say anything. She didn't bother concealing her smirk. "You know that's not what I meant! Oh, and I'll change as many of the carbon filters as we can. How many do we have?"

Kim's smile faded and she sighed. "Two spares. Not enough for all the splitters, but better than nothing. I guess it's a good thing we'll be docking soon in a couple days." She paused. "You know it's going to spread, right?"

 

Jensen closed his eyes and rubbed at his temples. "I don't think that's avoidable at this point."

Jensen clearly heard Kim calling him down the corridor. He had yet to meet anyone who could project their voice so effectively. "Jensen, your boyfriend wants you."

He looked up from small access panel in the corridor where he was checking a pressure valve, and saw Kim frowning at something outside his line of sight. As soon as he entered the module, he saw the problem. The display from the hold was filled by Jared's face—his open, yelling mouth, and then an eye. Jared backed away slightly before the screen went intermittently black. Apparently Jared was pounding on the tiny camera with the meat of his fist.

Jensen flicked on the sound.

"...fucker!" Thud. "Open the damned door!" Thud. "And get a fucking doctor!" Thud.

"Jared?" Jensen said. "What's going on?"

"She can't breathe! Open the fucking door!"

Jensen bent closer. "Can't breathe? Who? What happened?" He met Kim's eyes.

"I'll send Felicia to Med," she said. They could both hear the choking wheeze of someone struggling for breath.

"Dammit open the door!" Jared yelled.

Jensen moved. Before he left Command he reversed he took a stunner out of the weapons compartment. "Just in case," he muttered when he saw Kim watching him. She didn't say anything. Even though his and Jared's odd pseudo-friendship had cooled a bit, and their conversations didn't flow as easily as it had before the rationing started, they still spoke every nocturnal cycle. Jensen didn't think that Jared would try to jump him, and he thought it likely that Jared would try to dissuade anyone who planned something, but he couldn't be sure.

Jared's panicked face stared at him from beyond the airlock windows. Jensen opened the first airlock hatch, and then locked it behind him as usual. Even if it were a ruse, they wouldn't be able to breach the ship without either his lock code or Kim's override.

He spoke into the intercom. "Jared, back away. And everyone else too." When Jared had backed away, Jensen opened the hold entrance. The acrid, overwhelming smell of vomit hit him like a fist, made all the more potent by the smell of people confined with insufficient washing facilities. Jensen turned his head to try and will away the nausea.

"She had the flu," Jared said, motioning to an elderly woman who coughed weakly, and whose her breathing seemed labored and noisy. Her arms were held gently by a younger couple whose unsteady progress towards Jensen was interrupted by the woman's fits of coughing. "Now she can't breathe. And that stuff for fever is not doing much for anyone."

"Okay, but just you and her," Jensen said. Jared bared his teeth in frustration, and the words he spoke to the others were fast and too heavily accented for Jared to make out. They argued with Jared until Jensen brought up his weapon. He wasn't going to let unknowns wander around his ship. At least he and Jared had developed some kind of understanding. Grudgingly, the couple released the woman's arms and Jared guided her towards the airlock.

"You can be a real asshole, you know that," Jared said as he guided the woman through the C-tube. Jensen didn't hesitate as he opened the hatchway that led to the rest of the ship. As when he'd brought Jared to fix his nose, Jensen had locked down all other hatchways of Main Flight but the medic module. Jared stopped abruptly when he saw Felicia waiting. Jensen had been speaking with Jared regularly, and they had met a few times in the airlock to smooth over minor problems, but Jared hadn't yet met any of the crew, and unlike last time, Felicia didn't have on her armored augmentation suit.

"Jared, you remember Felicia," Jensen said, as he helped move the woman past the hatchway.

"I didn't think you were a doctor," Jared said. He following Felicia's lead and began strapping her to the wall.

"I. . . I'm not—" Felicia said. She had hooked up the sensors of the wall-mounted diagnostic array.

Jensen looked her in the eye as he spoke. "You're the closest thing we have."

Felicia shook her head as if to refute his words.

"You're it." Jensen's voice brooked no objection. "We're a couple days away from anywhere. Do what you can."

"Oh fuck," Felicia whispered.

Jensen was reasonably sure he hadn't been meant to hear Felicia's comment.

Felicia frowned at the readings and passed a hand-held scanner over the woman's chest. "She has pneumonia. I think."

"You think?" Jared question sounded more like an accusation and Felicia bristled.

"Yeah, I think." She turned to Jensen. "It's pretty clear. There might be something I'm missing—there's _probably_ something I'm missing—but that's my opinion. . ." she shrugged, "for what it's worth."

Jared shook his head in frustration. "I don't think this kid should—"

"Shut up, Jared." Jensen said to Jared, and then he spoke to Felicia. "Can we do something?"

Felicia began rummaging around the storage bins, checking the labels and pulling things out. "Shit, Jensen! This stuff is ancient!"

"I added this module seven months ago!" Jensen said. He picked up a bottle of powdered something and checked the date. Expiration dates were mostly useless, given the complications of relative time, and as with all perishables intended for space, this one had a small thin disk glued to the side: a countdown clock. "These are perfectly fine!"

Felicia shook her head. "Not what I meant. This, for instance." She picked up a bottle, and rattled it at him. "There are a dozen more effective medications. It's stuff from when my grandfather was little. It's . . . it's just not used anymore."

Jensen threw his hands up in frustration. "This is what there is! We're a friggin' cargo ship, not a luxury retreat!"

Felicia sighed in frustration. "I didn't mean . . . I don't know how to use a lot of this. We didn't cover it. We have so much better now." She paused. "Okay. Where's your medications and diagnostic guide? Don't all ships have them?"

Jensen nodded, and activated a wall terminal. "We've never used this MD, it but it should have come with the module. It's fully stocked."

" _This_ is fully stocked?" Felicia's looked around with a distinctly unimpressed expression.

"Yeah, it is," Jensen heard the defensiveness in his voice. "It's designed to handle minor incidents for a crew of five until we can get actual assistance."

With a small sealed container in hand, Felicia motioned him out of the way and began to look something up, pausing to double-check what was written on the label. She found what she was looking for, and Jared moved out of her way as she felt along the opposite wall. With a small "Yes!" of triumph, she flicked open the cover of a hidden cache of straps. Opening the panel further revealed a variety of instruments and various sized tubing (both flexible and rigid) in sealed pouches, with "STERILE" clearly printed in black capital letters.

Jensen ignored her muttered comment about museums.

The woman hadn't stopped her weak wheezing cough since she left the hold, but she limply let them strap her down, unable to spare either breath or energy. Felicia passed a hard tube in its plastic covering to Jared, who held it gingerly in front of him in stiff arms. "We have to help her breathe," Felicia continued. She looked up. "Jensen? Over there. That's the antibiotic I need, and the mixing ratios are on-screen."

The dispensary in this medic module was the ubiquitous PharmaDist-24, by far the preferred choice of most distance-haulers because it was durable, easily repaired, and straightforward to operate, even if it wasn't fully automatic like the newest versions. Jensen easily found the clear, empty IV bags and loaded them into the dispensary, which flashed green and immediately began a sanitization cycle. Jensen placed an antibiotic cartridge into the holding tray and he snapped in a resupply bottle of powdered salt—top-grade purified NaCl, not any old table salt. He winced at the salt expenditure. Salt had proven to be one of the most valued commodities in settled space and a sealed bottle like that would have fetched a hefty price in the right markets.

He sent Felicia's solution parameters to the dispensary and within seconds he heard the faint ticking as the machine added in the needed quantities. A droplet-shaped blue light lit up as the machine accessed the ship's water.

"Jared, you ready to go back?"

"What? No!"

Jensen stared at Jared who stared back. In the silence, Jared's stomach grumbled. Jensen looked away.

"Fine. You can stay. But I need you to back up to the wall."

Jared narrowed his eyes in suspicion, with the briefest glance at the weapon floating loosely on Jensen's belt-clip, but he did as Jensen requested. He tried to pull away when Jensen cuffed him to one of the pull-up cleats that dotted the walls of the Impala at regular intervals. Jared pulled at it angrily, but Jensen had already backed away.

"Sorry," Jensen said. "It's just a precaution. Felicia, I have to step out for a minute. You good?"

Jensen supposed he deserved the look she shot him. "I could use some help—" she said.

"I know. I'll be right back," Jensen said. As he slipped through the hatchway, he heard her directing Jared.

"You. Jared. You'll have to help. She's not going to like this, so you've gotta try and keep her still."

"What are you—" Jared said, and Jensen backed up enough to see what had made Jared so apprehensive. Felicia had snapped on a pair of gloves and was opening one of the sterile packages as another contraption, already opened, floated beside.

"I need to put this tube down her throat," she told Jared, who paled, and Jensen wondered if his own discomfort was as visible.

Jensen propelled himself down the corridor, where he could speak softly to Kim and not risk being overheard.

"Kim?" he said. It took a moment for her to acknowledge him and he wondered what she was busy with.

"Yeah?" Kim said.

"Got a situation."

"Another one?" Kim sighed heavily. "The people with the flu?"

Jensen heard a clatter from Med.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. . ." Felicia's string of profanity made its way to Jensen. "Tighten the fucking straps and don't let her fucking move!" he heard her shout. Jared said something too low for Jensen to make out.

"Yeah," Jensen told Kim. "Only this one is pneumonia, and when I opened the hold, what I heard wasn't the flu. I need you to separate the cargo hold circulation from ours."

"Jensen—"

"I know, the air system is supposed to filter out microbials. But we both know it doesn't always work, and the air splitters already aren't running optimally. Not taking the chance. Can't do much for the hold, but we can make sure it doesn't spread further. While you're at it, isolate the Med and the corridor."

"Med's already on its own, and I'll see what I can do about the corridor and C-tube," Kim said.

"Good. I have to get back."

He paused on his way back to check the listed inventory of face masks and he winced. Ten wouldn't nearly be enough.

"Holy shit, I did it!"

Jensen had just reached the hatchway when he heard Felicia's incredulous exclamation. Felicia and Jared both looked worn out, as if they'd had a recent sparring session. Felicia attached a flexible tube from the plastic bit in the woman's mouth to the oxygen pump built into the wall. A new set of lights and numbers lit up the panel, and Felicia frowned at them and made some adjustments.

"Did it work?" Jared asked.

"It . . . we'll see. She needs antibiotics. Jensen?"

He pulled himself along the wall to the PharmaDist, which was flashing a single green light. "Yeah, it's ready," he said.

Felicia opened more sterile bags and hooked the intravenous solution to the wall pump.

Since she seemed to have things well in hand, he turned his attention to Jared.

"Tell me what happened? How long?"

"I think she was sick for a couple days," Jared said. "There are a lot of people sick. Coughing. Everyone thought it was just a regular flu. But then it got worse really fast."

Felicia looked up from taping down the IV needle that now entered the woman's arm. There were a few small pinpricks of blood that had welled up along the woman's arm from where she'd encountered problems getting it in.

"A lot of people coughing like this?" Felicia asked.

"A few."

"Jensen?" Felicia nodded her head towards the corner of the room, and Jensen followed her. Jared watched after them with suspicion, but moved to hold the woman's hand and speak reassuringly to her. "Do you have any other supplies, other than what's here?" Felicia said, keeping her voice low so Jared wouldn't hear.

"This is it."

"That's not good. There won't be enough. And more people are going to need help." She stopped and stared at him. "You're not surprised."

"I'm a distance hauler, Felicia. I know what illness in an enclosed space can do."

"And you didn't bother getting adequate supplies?" Her eyes flashed angrily, and Jared looked up at the tone, though she hadn't spoken loud enough for him to hear.

"I fly with a crew of one or two! It wasn't needed! And we were promised supplies when we got to Newstart. It didn't happen." He'd thrown his hands out in frustration, muscles tense. He knew full well how badly he'd failed everyone.

"So . . ." Felicia's eyes flicked around the room as she tried to figure out how to handle the situation.

"So you take care of her as best you can, and then we send her back. Kim's already isolating the hold from the main air supply."

Felicia frowned. "What —"

"Hey!" Jared called. "When can the woman's family come see her?"

Jensen stopped what he was going to say and looked over to Jared. "They can't."

"But—"

"You can take her back as soon as Felicia says you can." He turned to Felicia. "I've got to get to Command. Jared's to stay cuffed, and you keep out of reach. Got it?"

"Yes Captain."

Jensen left with Jared glaring after him and Felicia immersed in quadruple-checking her work. Just before he entered Command, he took a moment to close his eyes and let himself breathe.

"Done," Kim said glancing at him as he cleared the hatchway. "The hold's separate. Now what?"

Kim's mouth was a thin line as she nodded her head towards the video of the hold. Jensen studied the mass of people, searching for signs of illness. A lot were coughing, and a few kids appeared to have trouble catching their breath. As he watched, an elderly man coughed until he threw up, which made everyone around him scatter until a couple other passengers used an opened sleeping bag to net the expanding circle of floating vomit.

"Now we see if we can shave off some of the travel time," Jensen said, and he called up the local system charts.

After an hour's fine-tuning and debate, and with a small adjustment of a thousandth of a degree, they were able to cut a couple hours off the ETA, but it also significantly reduced their margin of error. Standard practice dictated a planned slowdown that kept at least one thruster inactive, to be used as a backup if one of the others malfunctioned. The navigational change they made required all thrusters to work together.

Jensen also sent a message ahead to the station, letting them know about their passengers' medical needs. The laser light signal was flashed to the nearest known repeater, and would arrive at the station only slightly in advance of the Impala.

Both he and Kim started when a low pitched alarm began a rat-a-tat in the Command module. They began scanning the multitude of control panels to find the unfamiliar alert. Finally Kim moved forward and thumbed her acknowledgement on their never-before-used Med module link. She turned on the feed and they saw Felicia re-charging the defibrillator pads on the woman's bared chest.

"Shit," Jensen said.

"Go," Kim told him, but he was already moving.

When he shot into the room, Felicia's look of relief made him feel like shit for leaving her alone with this.

"I can't do it!" she said. She had put the defibrillators aside and was trying manual compressions as a last resort, "I can't press down! It sends me away! And this isn't working." She had wedged one foot into a foothold on the wall but the angle was wrong and she couldn't get enough leverage.

With the ease that came from a lifetime in space, Jensen flipped around, orienting himself directly over the patient, upside down, and placed his hands on the woman's chest as if he were doing a handstand. With his feet pushing from the platform, he began compressions. As soon as Felicia had understood what he was doing, she'd moved to the head to coordinate the breathing. Jensen lost himself in the rhythmic motions, until a hand on his arm stopped him. He looked at Jared, whose hand it was, and Jensen realized that Felicia had already stopped and moved away. She simply shook her head.

"It's been too long," she said. "She's gone."

Jared bowed his head and held a hand to his eyes. Felicia floated on the other side of the room, facing the wall with slumped shoulders. He went to Felicia and put a hand on her shoulder to show his support. She looked over at him from sad eyes. "I couldn't help her," she said. "How did you know how to do that?"

Jensen shrugged. "It's just entry level crew stuff. I'd planned to run you through the basics, now that you have your space legs, but we've been kind of busy."

"Captain, Jared says there are others sick. Some of them are kids."

He wrinkled his forehead, unsure where she was going with this. "Yes, I know . . ."

"We need to bring the sick here, see if it's the same thing, and if so start them on treatment right away."

"No." He shook his head. It wasn't even a consideration. Too many people loose in main compartments, too much chance to spread illness all over the ship. And if one of the sick were faking to try and break out, the damage caused could be catastrophic. "Can't," he said. "They need to stay in the main hold. I shouldn't even have let Jared out. . ." He easily imagined the heavy weight of his father's disapproval. His dad always told him a soft heart would get a ship killed faster than enemy fire. She nodded, as if it was expected.

"Figured," she said. She set her mouth, and he knew he wasn't going to like what came next. "I'm going back with Jared."

He shook his head in puzzlement. "You're not going to be able to see much from the airlock, it's better in Command where you can zoom in—"

"No. I mean I'm going into the hold."

"Like hell!"

Her eyes narrowed and she raised her chin in determination. She'd picked a fine time to display her dad's less attractive qualities, Jensen thought. "Felicia—"

"You want me to be shipboard medic. Fine! Then I'm going to see if there's something I can do with the little you have. You can't bring them here—I get that—so I'm going there."

"Jensen," Kim said in his ear, and he knew she'd been listening in. "I'm going to have to agree with her."

"Kim!"

"I know just as well as you do how these things can decimate a ship. If we can do something before it reaches the tipping point. . ." Kim said, with infuriating reason.

Jensen moved upward to meet Felicia's eyes, willing her to understand. "I can't protect you there. I can't even give you a fucking weapon if you do this. And if they hold you and try to force my hand. . ." He could see it so clearly. "I've seen this kind of situation play out before, Felicia, and I won't negotiate. I won't be able to get to you, and I'll have to watch as they. . ." He rubbed at his temples again. Fuck, he had a headache.

"No one will harm her." Jensen's eyes shot up to Jared, who had spoken from his forgotten place at the dead woman's bedside. "I promise she'll be okay."

"You can't promise that," Jensen said.

"But I am." Jared said.

Felicia hadn't looked away.

"Fine," he said to her, but his eyes jumped to Jared's, accepting the man's guarantee. "But you're getting suited up. Fuck!"

Felicia guided a large tote, and Jared followed behind her, with Jensen in the rear. Later Jensen would move the woman's corpse to be stored and disposed of. They couldn't jettison it at this speed without requiring tricky course adjustments.

Other than labored coughing, all sounds stopped as Felicia and Jared entered the hold. Jensen's hand was on the trigger and he was considering grabbing the material of her suit and yanking her back into the airlock when Felicia shot him a reassuring smile. It was no more than a crinkling of her eyes above the mask she wore, but Jensen returned it as best he was able. Jared gave him a nod, and Jensen couldn't doubt the sincerity in his intense gaze. Jensen let the airlock door seal her into the hold.

He and Kim evolved a new pattern, even as they fell into their old routine. Check course trajectory, look in on Felicia. Send a medical update to Metwrk, look in on Felicia. Work on rebuilding the broken air splitter, look in on Felicia. . .

As Felicia wore herself out looking after the sick, they checked on her more frequently. Several people stepped up to help out, and once they were shown the most effective way of washing without gravity, they got to work and scrubbed the hold until no area had been missed. It didn't help the Impala's water supply, but they were docking soon and would be able to fill up, plus having something to do appeared to improve morale. The work was done in short bursts, since the food rationing had sapped energy levels. Not much could be done about the airborne contaminants until the hold was emptied, though the new activated carbon filters removed some of the smell.

Jensen tongued his labret on and opened his link to Felicia. He hadn't found the heart medication she wanted for the middle aged man who was down to his last few pills. Somehow he'd managed to keep hold of his meds through all the chaos. Jensen suspected it was newer medication than what was onboard the Impala. Jensen had found other options in the reference guide, and he hoped one of those might work. It would be nice to have at least one thing work out.

As soon as the link opened, Felicia's voice filled his ear. She must have forgotten to close the link, he thought, or maybe she had deliberately left it open in case both of her hands were busy when someone tried to reach her. Felicia's communicator wasn't pierced into her skin like Jensen's, and she didn't have a link to the Impala. Instead, it was slipped in her ear, where it was manually activated when she wanted to accept an incoming call from Jensen or Kim.

". . . first time," Felicia was saying.

"Huh. How long have you been here?" Jared 's voice came through as clear as Felicia's, and Jensen wondered what they were doing for him to be so close to Felicia's mic.

He moved over to the monitors and switched cameras until he found them, side by side in a corner, taking a break to rehydrate. As he watched, a passenger said something to them as he passed by. Jensen couldn't make the words out, but Jared seemed to grow as he straightened up and flexed his shoulders. His stance combined with a fierce glare were enough to send the newcomer away. Jensen was relieved that Jared was keeping his promise to keep Felicia safe.

"How long have I been on the Impala? Not long," Felicia said. "Only the last few weeks. The captain and my Dad crewed together before I was born."

Jared blinked at her and then chuckled. "Nice try. But he's not that old."

Felicia smiled. "Well, for him it wasn't that long ago. But Dad left space travel to have a family."

"What?" Jared sounded confused. It was easy to forget that Jared's planet had seen minimal space traffic, apart from the military fleets that fought over it. The communities had been mostly self-sufficient, and space travel didn't seem to have been much of a priority.

"Well, long-distance space travel really messes with aging. It's a speed of light thing, not that true light-speed is possible. But distance cargo haulers like this ship? Gets you close enough. Moves you forward in time, sort of," Felicia told him. "Bet you'd never guess that Jensen is my uncle. Well, not biologically, but he and my dad were best buds before Dad decided he wanted to put down roots. And then I came along, and . . . Jared? Jared!"

Jensen winced at Felicia's shout. Just then, a message chimed for his attention. Jared stood, shifting impatiently in front of the video link. With a heavy heart, Jensen answered. He knew what was coming.

"Hi, Jared—"

"Turn around! Go back!" Jared stumbled over his words in his rush to get them out.

Jensen took a slow breath; he didn't ask Jared to clarify what should have been an odd request, had he not been eavesdropping. "I can't do that. You know I can't."

"I can't . . ." Jared seemed close to tears. "The time. Just turn around."

"It doesn't work like that. There's no reverse."

Jared shook his head to deny Jensen's words.

"Jared," Jensen tried again. "There's no backward. There's just forward in the opposite direction. It won't help. You're asking for actual time travel."

"Yes!" Jared shouted.

Jensen shook his head. "Doesn't exist."

Jared's eyes turned imploring. "Please just go back."

"I _can't_!"

"But Adrianne. . ."

"I said we'd find her! And we will." Jensen saw Jared ready to argue further. "Gotta go." Jensen killed the connection with a muttered curse and a twist in his gut.

As she became more exhausted, Felicia became more and more frustrated by both the lack of supplies and the lack of adequate sanitation. The bags of sterilized equipment had been intended for single usage, and the small medic module didn't have a sterilization chamber.

"Do you know what I'm doing?" Felicia railed at them, sounding horrified. They let her vent: there was nothing Jensen or Kim could do, and Felicia knew it. "I'm reusing equipment, needles, tubing . . . Fuck! Do you get how bad that is?" Jensen started to answer but she didn't wait for the reply. "So I'm telling parents that I can try and save their kids, but it's possible that I'm giving them something that will kill them later. What kind of sick, fucked-up choice is that?" Her wild eyes were ringed with dark circles and her face stood out ghostly pale against her short-cropped red hair. Jensen wondered when she had last slept.

"And we're almost out of antibiotics, so I'm turning away the older people and hoping they pull through because the little ones need less and I can stretch it further. So now I'm hoping these other antibiotics will help even though it's not really what they're meant for!" She opened her mouth as if to continue, but instead she just gave a little hopeless shake of her head and let herself just hang there.

"Can you at least turn on the gravity? There's only one IV pump. The other one died. I could use gravity to drip it in, but of course that doesn't work in this fucking place, like everything else. So I have volunteers doing it manually, slow and steady. It's so fucked up!"

"We can't rotate at this speed," Kim said, and she seemed to shrink in on herself with each negative answer she was forced to give. "The C-tubes don't have enough shielding and small particles could rip through."

"Just stop for a couple hours—"

"No." Jensen said, gently but firm. A glance at another camera feed showed Jared listening as well. "These are not short distances! If we slow down too much or too early, it could add on weeks, if not months, of travel." He looked into Felicia's tired eyes. "We've been over the options. Repeatedly. We're going to be short if we stop. Not food—air. We're continuing on the planned course. I _can't_ stop."

"People will die if—"

"Felicia," he said, and his sigh seemed to carry with it most of his remaining energy. "If we try to help those few, we all die. Everyone."

She was shaking her head, as if to deny it, but she closed her eyes and said nothing.

"We're starting deceleration in three hours and we'll be under deceleration for two days. Tell everyone they'll be getting off soon."

Jensen adjusted his mask again as he towed five more bodies to storage. Two of the bodies were tiny and easily cradled in his arms. Those were the worst. He had just finished securing the hatch when Kim called him.

 

"Get to Command," she said. "There's a message from Metwrk."

Jensen frowned as Kim nodded to the screen as soon as he entered. Then his jaw dropped.

"What do they mean, 'no'?" he said. "Let me see our communications record again." Jensen reread the messages he had sent and the response he'd just received.

"Sounds like they don't want us to land," Kim said.

"Mmm," Jensen said, and he drummed his fingers. "But has to be a miscommunication, right? Ask for clarification. We'll continue and then explain our predicament when we get there."

Kim hit the ship wide velocity change warning.

"Hold on then," Kim told him, and she keyed the deceleration program.

As the reverse propulsion activated, onscreen Jensen could see the wide eyes and panicked scrambling as everyone in the hold scrambled to find a handhold, and were pushed against the wall by the changing acceleration.

Jensen rubbed his eyes as he left his sleep station and made his way to Command. "Okay, give it."

"Just passed the inner probes," Kim said, "and we're on approach to Metwrk's second station. Station grav is at five."

"Impala-2Y5 requesting permission to dock," Jensen sent the request to the station even as he made the necessary adjustments to prepare for docking.

"Permission denied, Impala-2Y5."

Kim looked up at him with raised eyebrows. Jensen felt cold. Official requests to dock were usually a formality, to let the station choose the best approach.

"This is Captain Ackles of Impala-2Y5. Please repeat."

"Yes, you heard correctly, Impala. We cannot grant you docking rights at this time."

Jensen cut the microphone and said to Kim, "Are they full?"

"No. The cargo berths are empty. And they have a full contingent of shuttles."

"What the—" Jensen muttered as he thumbed on the microphone again. "Sorry, station, there seems to be a miscommunication. We are here to drop off your refugees and resupply, as instructed. Please prepare to receive us." He turned to Kim. "Do it."

Kim gave a little shake of her head as she complied.

"Two fighters!" she called, as the panels lit up.

"Impala-2Y5, stop your advance. Permission to dock is denied."

"What the hell?" Jensen yelled, as Kim hurried to halt their momentum.

"You will not be permitted to further approach Metwrk-2. The citizens you carry cannot land here. We do not have adequate supplies to support them."

"I've hear this speech before, but we have—"

"I don't give a fuck!" It was a different voice than the first, older, harder. "We have just enough for our people, and we've taken as many newcomers as we can from the others who stopped here. We have no food or supplies for you. Now leave. And," he spoke over Jensen who had attempted to cut in, "continued approach will be treated as hostile." The channel fell silent, and Jensen's attempts to reestablish contact failed.

"Jen? I'm getting trace power signatures. . . Oh fuck! They're—"

The shot across their bow was weak—a warning. The shrapnel of this warning explosive had been designed to disintegrate into sand-like particles, without the velocity to penetrate shields and without the accompanying concussive wave that would have preceded it in atmosphere. The sand spray broke across the Impala's nose with the sound of artillery fire, and it sent Jensen and Kim into their harnesses as alarms blared throughout the ship and the hatches automatically sealed once more.

"Integrity?" Jensen shouted.

"Good." Kim replied, when she'd checked the ship's readings.

"Full reverse! Get us out of range and bring up the nav charts, we need the next closest port! Fuck!"


	6. The Promise: Room to Breathe

"Captain, what's happening?" Felicia's panic-laced voice shouted in Jensen's ear as he sought to find the shortest transit time to another station. Shortest might not be the nearest in terms of distance, depending on the vector changes needed. Kim, also still in her harness, was busy doing the same thing.

"Not now." Jensen said, and he swore as he accidentally re-input a coordinate set that he'd already done.

"Captain!" Felicia said again. Jensen heard the clamor of the hold in the background as she spoke. "Jensen! I need to set a broken bone! The emergency barrier-thing broke someone's arm. Is anyone listening?"

Jensen's face hardened and he could hear his teeth grind together as his jaw tightened, but he didn't answer. Instead he muted Felicia, and the only sound that remained in the Command Module was rapid tapping as he and Kim tried to find a way out of this mess.

"Here," he said after a bit. They remained in orbit around Metwrk-2's planetoid, but further away. "Cormia. It's a metals trading center, near an unstable star. Seems to have been there for a couple hundred years. Even has an Echelon station." Kim gave him a small, distracted smile, but omitted the sarcastic comments that would have normally accompanied his mentioning of the premiere interstellar bordello service. Jensen continued. "I don't see anything closer. You?"

"No. But have you seen the CO2 readings?"

He laughed, an ugly, tired sound that betrayed how close he was to unravelling. "One life or death situation at a time. Please? The Impala can be pretty badass, but she's still a cargo hauler. We can't win a firefight against fighters with station backup. Set a course to Cormia." He sighed. "I'll be back shortly and I'll check out those reading; right now, I'm going to go get yelled at by Felicia and Jared."

Jensen slid a bundle of splints and bandages into a storage strap in the hold's airlock and added setting sleeves of various sizes, but he wasn't sure which Felicia would consider more ancient. He banged on the porthole to get someone's attention. He didn't recognize the squinting man who peeked through, but soon Jared was there. Jensen pointed to the splints, and Jared nodded before signaling for Jensen to access the intercom.

"Hey Jared," he said. There must have been something in his voice because the anger visible in the set of Jared's eyes faded a bit, and Jared pressed his face against the glass and looked Jensen up and down.

"Why are we accelerating?" he demanded.

"Is that Jensen?" He heard Felicia's voice before he saw her. She leaned into view and said, "What the hell was that? We need to get these people on-station!"

Well, that was good, Jensen thought. At least he wouldn't have to repeat himself.

"Yeah," he said. "I tried explaining that to the nice people who shot at us." He took a breath and continued. "We're aiming for the next station." He looked up at them and saw frightened understanding in both faces.

"The oxygen supply?" Felicia asked, in a small voice. Jensen watched Jared wrap her in a one-armed hug. It looked nice.

"We're taking stock of that right now," Jensen said, and knew his non-answer hadn't slipped past them. "I'm sorry about the lockdown and the broken arm. Unavoidable. I put stuff to treat it in here. I've gotta go." He closed communication, even though it looked like Jared would have said something else, and exited the airlock. Once it was sealed, he unlocked the hold's access, and Felicia entered. She was overtaken by a short fit of coughing as she and took the supplies. He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. She looked at him once through the porthole, but turned back and returned to the hold, closing the door behind her. Jensen locked it, and made his way to Bio-Support.

Jensen watched Kim gaze at the photo of her kids and her husband, Jim. Jensen and Jim had never really seen eye to eye. Jim Beaver had always regarded Jensen as an obstacle to his family's happiness, and Jensen thought, now, that maybe the concern had been warranted. Kim looked up and Jensen nodded a greeting. Her face was lit up and her eyes shone.

"What happened?" he asked. "I could use some good news."

"They're there!" Kim beamed.

"Who's where?" Jensen asked.

"Jim and the kids!" she said. "We picked the message off the repeaters when we hit Metwrk's array." He smile twisted a bit. "The boys sent this when they arrived at the land allotment. . . from Newstart. My part of the payment for this job. See the housing unit behind them? It's all ours. They sent me this to say how wonderful it is!" She showed Jensen the image of Jim and two smiling, jumping little boys, who accidentally head-butted Jim in the chin before the message ended. "Our new place is near Base 4."

"That's great," Jensen said. "Let's take a look." He called up a holographic image of Jared's planet and tried to ignore the upwelling of guilt that accompanied it. No Base 4 was listed. He frowned and looked again.

Kim laughed. "Come on, Jensen, we have work to do. I needed a few minutes' distraction, but I'm good."

Jensen smiled. "Just trying to see where I'll be going to get a decent home-cooked meal."

"And you thought _my_ place?" Kim burst out laughing and the slightly haunted look faded. "What, in all the time we've known each other, makes you think I can cook anything remotely palatable?"

"Well, I'd actually been thinking of Jim."

Kim thwacked him on the shoulder and looked at the planetary map shining in blue laser before them. The known place names had been highlighted in red.

She shook her head and her smile faded as she contemplated the globe. "No, I don't think it's listed there. Base 4 is the new settlement designation. It used to be Sunfish Bay, or something like that before it was burnt down."

Jensen felt a muscle jump as he clenched his jaw, and he input the place name and the globe spun and zoomed in on the new location.

"There we are," Jensen said. "Sunfish Bay." He typed in the new designation, and soon "Base 4" replaced the former colony name. They were quiet for a few moments.

"At least it's on the other side," Kim said, finally.

"Hmm?"

"From Jared's village," she said, without meeting his eyes. "I thought maybe they would send me there, and. . . I don't know—it feels horrible enough already."

"We knew, going in, that—" Jensen hedged.

"I didn't know they were being forced out! And you didn't either. So yeah, now I know. And my kids' new, shiny, whitewashed home seems kind of red."

Jensen said nothing, and they both stared at the rotating holographic planet until the computer's power-conservation feature kicked in.

"Okay," Kim said. She shook herself, grabbed a ration bar and some water. "So the vector changes are done. It'll be a straight, hard acceleration, and we'll be coming in hot. I sent a mayday to Cormia. They should get it a day or so before we arrive, and they'll have time to set their shields. What's happening with our air?"

"Well," Jensen said. "Oxygen looks good. We'd been running the usual 20% so I decreased it a couple percentages, to be sure. We'll have enough to last up until Cormia."

Kim gave him a big smile. "Great!" she said. Jensen winced and she narrowed her eyes at him. "So what's with the numbers?" she asked.

"It's the splitters. They're not keeping up with the output. More people than intended, so we've been running them at maximum. Now it looks like this one is failing." He pointed to the splitter on the back wall of the hold. "I've been tinkering with the broken one, but I don't have it working yet."

"So what does that look like for us?"

"We'll likely cross our carbon dioxide threshold about twelve hours before our ETA."

Jensen looked through the airlock window but didn't see Felicia.

"Felicia? You still hanging on?

"Jensen, it's getting stuffy in here, and everyone's complaining of headaches. It's the lack of oxygen, isn't it?" she said. "Can't you do anything?"

"Not the oxygen, and yeah, I can. Can you come to the airlock without attracting much notice? I have something that I need you to put on every air vent."

"I'll send Jared. I stick out: I'm an outsider, I have a strange accent, and I'm the only redhead here. Oh, and I'm part of the crew that's imprisoning them," she said.

Jensen let Jared into the airlock when he arrived, and he shut it behind him. He handed thick, porous black sheets to Jared, who took it without comprehension. Jensen then handed him a roll of heavy grey tape.

"I need to you attach this to each air vent," Jensen said.

"Why?" Jared asked.

"It's a sorbent pad." Jensen's brisk reply hadn't seemed to help.

"What?"

"Just do it," Jensen said. He was done with explanations. But he made the mistake of looking into Jared's expressive, earnest eyes, and he relented. "It will take out some of the carbon dioxide."

A short time later, Jensen watched Jared attach a black pad to each of the vents. When Jared was done, Jensen turned to Kim. "Is is working?"

"Too soon to tell," Kim said. And then, "Hell yeah! That did it. Look at those levels drop!" Jensen let out a relieved whoosh of breath.

In his workshop, Jensen rubbed his face. The pressure against his tired eyes felt good, so he did it again and followed it with a neck stretch. He yawned a few times but didn't feel any better. He'd had a constant headache for the last few hours, and at any other time he'd have credited the several hours of trying to fix the broken splitter, but the flashing amber of the room's carbon dioxide detectors flagged the cause. He paused to check the reading: 5%. That would do it. He was feeling a bit buggy and he needed least an hour or two of sleep soon.

The heavy duty sorbent pads that he'd ripped out of the emergency escape pod gave them a little more time, but they would soon be saturated. While exposure to space would restore them, the shielding needed to travel at these speeds would be compromised by opening during flight.

He hooked up the splitter component to the power grid from where he sat in the workshop, the smallest of the Impala's modules. Jensen's eyes widened in disbelief when the splitter blinked on. He unplugged the component, set it into its housing, and connected the laser to the circulation system. Then he powered it up again, and took a grateful gulp of the cool, refreshing air that blew out. A sheen of fine black dust now floated around the formerly empty collector cartridge. Jensen turned it off, pinched a bit of the powder and rubbed it between his fingers. It was exactly as it should be; pure carbon a by-product of the splitting of carbon dioxide into its component parts. He allowed himself a fist pump.

"Yes!" He'd closed his labret ship's link so Kim didn't have to listen to his swearing during the many previous failures, and now he tongued it on. . "Kim, we got it! Not perfect, but I'm bringing you the output data." Jensen rushed to Command. The flashing amber CO2 detectors that dotted the walls underscored the need to hurry. He floated the output testing data to her as he entered the module. She studied it and sat down to her console. After a moment, she stopped and looked up.

"It . . .it looks good!" She threw him a blinding smile. "Not going kid you, the levels are still going to be inching higher and we'll all be noticing it. But it's survivable. I think."

"Mayday. Mayday. Impala 2Y5 on emergency approach. Urgent medical attention required. Two hundred and fifty passengers in the hold. Elevated CO2, threshold levels. Transmitting shipping manifest now." Jensen knuckled his eyes as his vision swam out of focus again, and his hand trembled over the buttons.

"Kim, I'm not going to be able to dock," Jensen said, into the silence of the command module. He shook his head, and tried to focus properly. "I can't see well enough. You're going to have to do it."

But Kim shook her head. "I'm feeling it, too."

"The rebreathers are out." Jensen said. Kim and Jensen had each donned rebreathers during the pivotal deceleration procedures and vector changes, but those were now saturated. A quick check of the people in the cargo hold showed little movement other than the occasional tremors of varying severity among the semi-conscious passengers. The carbon dioxide detectors throughout the ship were emitting a steady red light, though in little pockets of poor circulation an occasional amber light could be seen. The CO2 was approaching a threshold level in the command module, but should hold off until they docked. Except that they needed a fully functional pilot on approach, not one dazed by inadequate air.

Jensen closed his eyes and made a decision. His stomach knotted and he had a pain in his chest as he thought about Felicia and Jared, but he pushed it aside, and began changing the ship's air circulation pattern, making his fingers move slowly and deliberately to minimize tremors as he worked. He blinked repeatedly as his vision swam, even though he knew it would make no difference.

"What are you doing?" Kim asked. Her breathing was harsh and heavy and her face was flushed.

"Hooking up the splitters in a series—gonna piggyback it and shunt it all to you." He ignored Kim's protest and unplugged a mask from the failing rebreathers to plug it into the emergency pilot vent. "It will default back once you dock. You only need a couple minutes more . . ." Jensen muttered to himself, and usually ignored sound of the air exchangers was silenced as the general air circulation shut down.

"No . . . just wait. Jensen—ah, fuck!" Kim stuck on her mask and breathed deeply, shaking her head as if it would shake away the haze and lethargy. She squinted at the screen and took over the controls.

"Mayday! Mayday! Cormia station! Coming in hard!" He heard her as if she was speaking from the other side of the ship, and not from next to him.

Jensen dragged his eyes to the cargo hold monitor, and knew the image of all those people floating inside the hold would haunt his dreams for a very long time—or possibly a very short time if this last gamble failed. He saw Jared, drifting listlessly, his hair floating unbound, his eyes closed and his face slack.

He wondered how long Jared had been unconscious. He heard the groan and shudder of the ship as it connected with the station, and since Jensen wasn't in his harness, the sudden stop slammed him into the wall. His last thought before blackness overtook him was that he should tell Kim she had come in much too fast.

Jensen awoke to an unfamiliar droning. He blinked awake and started at the mask over his face.

"You're with us again, Captain," an unfamiliar voice said from the other side of the Command Module, and a blurry shape moved closer. "I think you probably don't need that anymore."

The mask was removed, and a gloved hand flashed a light into his eyes, and then the blurry shape resolved into a uniformed man in full protective gear moving away from him. The ship's air was no longer stifling, and Jensen spotted a portable industrial scrubber in the hallway. From the level of noise, he imagined there were other units elsewhere on the ship. Kim was talking to two people who seemed to have some measure of authority, and Felicia caught his eye when he looked over and gave him a tired wave through her own mask. He unstrapped himself and drifted over to the cargo hold cameras. He flicked through each camera feed, watching a bevy of station personnel attending to those still in the cargo hold. People were being escorted out.

He didn't see Jared, but it was hard to make out any individual person in all the movement. There. . . Jared, awake but sluggish. Jensen closed his eyes and let his tight shoulders relax. When he looked up, Kim and the other two approached him.

"Captain." One of the men spoke. He didn't offer a handshake, nor a greeting. "Your co-pilot has given us her account of what happened. When you are ready, we would like to speak with you as well. Separately."

"Of course," he said. "Did everyone make it?"

The man studied him for a moment. "No," he said. Whatever he read in Jensen's face made him relent and he grudgingly continued. "Most are recovering. Those with the most advanced respiratory illness could not be resuscitated. Sorry, I don't have numbers for you."

"Who didn't make it?" Jensen asked. Jensen looked to Kim, who looked helplessly back.

"I don't have that information."

"Pilot Rhodes said that these people are to be let off here?" Jensen nodded, and the station's representative continued. "We never received word to expect anyone. I'll ask that everyone remain aboard until I can convene the board of governors for an emergency meeting. Don't go anywhere." Jensen nodded again, and the man left.

A week later, as the hatch sealed behind the last of the Newstart deportees, Jensen felt as if he could take a full breath for the first time since this wretched mess began. The incoming message light came on.

"Impala-2Y5," Jensen said.

"Cormia station," came the reply. "We're ready to disengage the locks, but we have a discrepancy in the passenger manifest. We seem to be missing one person."

"Who?"

"We have people tracking down that information now. It could be a clerical error; your arrival wasn't exactly orderly."

"Yeah," Jensen said. He stood up and shifted all bridge communications to his ship link. "We'll do a sweep as well, and see anyone got missed. Impala out."

"Station out."

"Kim, do a scanner sweep. I'm doing a walk-through of the ship before we power down life support in the holds. Looks like we might have a stowaway."

"Someone wants to stay here?" Kim said with an incredulous laugh. "Need me to help with the walk-through?"

"I got it." Jensen thought it more likely that there was a body that had been missed, and that was entirely his responsibility.

He saw Jared him immediately as he entered the hold, which was otherwise deserted. Jared sat with his back against the far wall. Frowning, Jensen approached.

"Jared?" He walked up to the other man and sat down. "I was just about to shut down this area. We're preparing to leave. Why are you still here? We finally found you a new home."

Jared looked up at him, face shuttered, calm, and determined.

"This place is not my home," Jared said.

Jensen sighed as he said, "Jared, I can't return you to Newstart, even if I wanted to. It's just not possible. And everything you had is gone—was destroyed to make sure no one could go back."

Jared clenched his jaw and his eyes tightened, but he did not move.

"No," Jared said. "You told me—you promised!—that I would see Adrianne again when we arrived. Promised! And none of the other ships landed here. She's not here! So no, I'm not going with them."

"I'm sorry about everything. I am. But this is the first port that accepted us. The land is habitable and the population has enough food stored to handle the influx. I can't believe you want to stay on the ship."

"Yeah, I bet you can't. Did you even check about Adrianne?"

Jensen sighed. "Yeah, I checked. You're right; we're the first ship to arrive. And no," Jensen preempted his next question. "I don't have any information on what route the others took. I haven't heard about Osric's convoy, but the stationmaster heard of a convoy from Newstart heading to the Aurit system."

"Great," Jared said, with complete lack of enthusiasm, but loads of determination, "Then I'll be going with you to Aurit." Jensen stared at him with his mouth open. Then turned around.

"Stay," he said, and he let the airlock hiss closed behind him. He opened a channel to Kim. "Kim, he won't leave!"

"Who?"

"Jared! Says I owe him. Says I promised to find his girl."

The other line was quiet, and Jensen knew he wouldn't like what he was about to hear.

"Didn't you?" Kim said.

"That was to prevent a fucking riot! To save their bloody lives! I didn't . . ."

"Mean it?" Kim finished for him. "I don't think Jared's going to accept that. Do you?"

"So what now? He wants to go to Aurit! I could force him off—"

"Yeah, but there's a pretty good chance he'll fight back and you might have to do something you'll never forgive yourself for. Why Aurit?"

"I stupidly told him that I thought Osric was headed there. But it's only rumor!"

Jensen heard her sigh. "Okay, well, Aurit's not that far out of the way from Newstart."

"Seriously, you want to take a detour from getting to your new home?"

"Jensen, I need to be able to look my kids in the eye and walk down the road without thinking about Jared and his people. So yeah. If a short detour is all it takes to let me relax, then sure. You want me to run a systems recalibration to include Jared?"

Jensen closed his eyes and let his head thud back against the wall of the corridor outside the hold. "Okay," he said, grudging. "Do it. I'll move Jared into an actual sleep station. No reason for him to stay in the hold. Just . . . keep an eye on him. I'm not sure he's stable."

Kim laughed. "Aw honey, I'm not sure any of us are."


	7. The Search: The Smell of Space

Showers were one of the last stops on Jensen's impromptu little tour of the Impala, and Kim had barely restrained a gag when Jared had come into the Command module. She had been complaining about the residual stink—loudly—in Jensen's ear ever since. Jared hadn't seen the conditioning room either, but that could wait. Showers could not. Jared had, with the others, been able to sneak in a perfunctory wipe-down, thanks to the Med Team's portable wash units, but there had been no way to arrange for decent showers for that many people, especially with the Impala's depleted water supply. Now they were only waiting for the water reclamation's systems check and sanitation cycle to finish.

He flicked his labret to open a link to Command. "How's the water situation?" he asked. Jared looked at him, but said nothing.

Felicia answered. "Water levels are topped up and sanitation cycle is completed, but the reclamation is still sub-par."

Jensen chewed his lip. "Okay, limited showers," he heard cheers through his earpiece, "but keep 'em minimal." He turned to Jared. "This way."

He slid his hand over the release panel and the door slid down to disappear into the groove in the wall below him.

"I wish they all opened the same way," Jared said. He hadn't said much during the tour, and Jensen found he missed the incessant babbling of Jared's voice from those first few days, telling stories to keep up the kids' morale. Jared appeared a bit overwhelmed.

"Doing okay?" Jensen asked.

Jared's harrumphed reply was noncommittal, and Jensen wondered how much the man was regretting his decision to leave his friends and the only connection to his former community in order to stay on the Impala.

"I . . . I would just like all the doors to open the same way," Jared said again, shrugging, but his voice softened at the end. He sounded younger, and his accent was more pronounced. Jensen heard an undercurrent of bewilderment, and he raised a skeptical eyebrow but said nothing. If that was all the man felt willing to confide, Jensen wouldn't question it.

"They do," he said, with a puzzled frown. "With the rotation of Cormia Station, we were under gravity—"

"I stayed in the cargo area with the others," Jared said. "I never saw the rest of the ship."

"Oh." Jensen paused. "Well, with gravity, we'd be approaching the hatches all the same way. I'll send you the schematics—something you should know anyway—and you'll notice all hatch doors slide sideways. But out here, when we're weightless," Jensen shrugged, "it just doesn't matter." Jared's eyes drifted to one of the porthole observation windows where the noxious ocean of Cormia filled the view. "It's not too late," Jensen said. "We can go back to—"

"No." Jared's reply was unequivocal.

"Okay. In that case, time for showers." Jensen turned away from Jared and entered through the hatchway. "So here's the Impala's wash station."

Jensen pulled off his shirt and tucked it into a strap on the wall. Then he shimmied out of his pants, letting himself rotate as he did so, and tucked them in as well. He turned, looking at Jared upside down and expecting Jared to have done likewise, but the man just stared at him.

"Jared?"

"What are you doing?"

"Showering? The women will be here shortl, and with four it can get crowded," Jensen said, and was confused at Jared's open-mouthed expression.

"The . . . Oh! The. . . Sorry, I'll just wait out there." Jared tried to exit the wash station module, but couldn't work the Impala's non-standard opening mechanism.

"Whoa!" Jensen said. "What's wrong?"

Jared seemed perturbed, and for the life of him, Jensen couldn't figure out what in the last couple minutes had spooked him.

"No, it's fine, I'll just take one when you're done," Jared said, and Jensen could see through his attempted nonchalance.

"Just. . . wait," Jensen backed away to give Jared some space, and he linked to Kim. "I need some help here," he whispered.

"That's what your hand's for, Jensen," Kim said.

"Funny. It's Jared. I don't know. He's . . . upset about the showers?"

"What's wrong with the showers?"

"Nothing!"

"I thought that might happen." Felicia's voice sounded in the background.

"Why the fuck?"

"Huh?" Kim and Jensen both spoke at the same time.

"Guys," Felicia said, clearer now that she had activated her earpiece, "the communal all-gender showers? Not a universal thing. It's one of the reasons there's so much gossip about distance haulers."

Jensen shrugged, which they couldn't see. "Jared never said anything."

"Probably never occurred to him that he needed to. I looked it up when you said Jared was staying. Anyway, Newstart custom is individual showers, same as where I grew up."

"Really?" Kim said. "That's pretty wasteful."

Jensen frowned. "You were fine."

"Yeah, well, Dad liked telling stories, so I knew what to expect, sort of," Felicia said with a nervous, tittering laugh."But no, it was kind of weird the first couple times. Got used to it though."

"So we go slow," Jensen said. "Got it."

He turned to Jared. "Listen, Jared, you can pull across the privacy barrier if you want."

"Yeah?" Jared said. Jensen was rewarded by Jared's first true smile since his shipboard tour had begun. "A shower would be good. I kind of smell."

"Let me show you how it works," Jensen said, reminding himself that even something as simple as a shower might be new. As Jensen spoke, Jared stripped down to his underwear, which he then dallied over removing. Jensen ignored the odd modesty, and continued the shower demonstration.

Jensen turned on the water, which immediately began to trail out of the showerhead and form a large floating blob. Wide-eyed, Jared watched the water sphere enlarge until it was about fist-sized.

"So," Jensen said, shutting off the water valve and cupping his hand around the undulating sphere, which immediately adhered to it. As he moved, the water stayed stuck to his hand, and when he separated his fingers, the water appeared to form a jelly-like web between them.

"Water's pretty clingy," Jensen continued. He shook off the ball of water, and while most of it floated off, a fine film of water still encased his hand. "So the walls in the wash station are treated with a hydrophobic coating. This here is the soap solution." Jensen uncapped the tubed end of an opaque grey bag. He let another blob of liquid well up, and then began rubbing it all over himself before he covered himself with the water blob and vigorously scrubbed.

"There's a pull-out partition in the wall behind you," Jensen said, as he vacuumed up the excess water. "We don't bother, but you're welcome to use it. Communal showers cut down on wasted water and energy. It's just how we do showers out here. But feel free to use it if you want to." Jared nodded and extended the privacy barrier.

Jared undid the ribbon that held his hair back and his hair slowly fanned out. The hard lines of Jared's body were blurred by the frosted glass-like partition, but Jensen couldn't take his eyes from the rotating movement of the skin as Jared removed his underwear. Every now and then Jared's body pressed close against the partition, and his form became clearer.

Without taking his eyes away from Jared, who held his arm stretched and bent over his head and was scrubbing away at his underarm, Jensen toweled off. He grimaced at his burgeoning erection and willed it to wait until later, when he was alone. He re-clipped the towel to the wall when he was done. As it dried, the water would be reclaimed and added to their drinking supply.

Jared didn't linger. He continually twisted behind the partition as he thoroughly washed away the filth of the last few weeks. The soft slurping of the hand vacuum broke Jensen's stare. He blinked and cleared his throat.

"All good?" Jensen asked.

"Yeah, but can I get a towel or something?"

Jensen passed him a towel around the edge of the partition, and Jared exited the shower stall with the towel wrapped loosely around his waist. He flung out his hair like a planet-side dog shaking itself, flinging water droplets everywhere, and leaving his long hair spread out around him like a spiky ball. As he moved and twisted, Jared's towel moved as well, as there was no gravity to keep it hanging down. Jensen couldn't help but track its movements, until Jared hurried to adjust it just before it revealed more than he was comfortable with.

Jared tried to maneuver himself along the wall towards his clothes, while holding tightly to his towel, but his still-damp hand slipped on the hydrophobic walls, which sent him in a slow rotating drift towards Jensen. Jared kicked out his legs and arms in an attempt to recover, but that did nothing except allow Jared's towel to loosen further. As his body tumbled, Jensen got an excellent view of all Jared's considerable assets. Jensen's hand darted out to snag a leg, and he steadied Jared, keeping his eyes averted in deference to Jared's apparent modesty, until the man had grabbed a handhold and regained his bearings.

Jared's face was already flushed from the shower and his vigorous scrubbing, but Jensen suspected embarrassment was now contributing its fair share to the adorable blush. Jensen couldn't understand what the hell Jared was embarrassed about. The sharp definition of Jared's abdomen, the chiseled V where his leg met his hip, and the mesmerizing play of massive planet-born muscles any time Jared moved: with a body like Jared's, Jensen would fly the Impala naked. Then again, maybe not. His first year captaining the Impala, just him and Tim, he'd gotten a particularly hard lesson about tucking away soft float-y body parts when he had needed to quickly fasten a harness. The other man had nearly laughed himself hoarse at Jensen's yelp of pain when he'd realized what had happened.

"You okay?" Jensen asked, his voice thick and gruff. He cleared his throat.

"Fine," Jared said, with a bit of a squeak.

"Good," Jensen said. "Your old clothes are just going to be incinerated; they're not salvageable. I should be able to find something extra in storage for you to wear, and then I'll show you to your sleep station." Jared nodded, firmly holding the towel down.

When Jensen returned with a bundle of clothing, Jared was staring at himself intently in the mirror, turning his newly-shaven face one way and then the other. Jensen froze. As he stared, Jared replaced Jensen's razor, hair clippers and the vacuum attachment into their slots. Jared now sported a typical spacer cut like Jensen's.

Jared caught Jensen's open-mouthed stare reflected in the mirror.

"Figured it would be easier," Jared said simply.

"Oh," Jensen said. He hung there dumbly a moment before asking, "Clothes?" Jared nodded and Jensen handed them over. "Biggest I could find. They're big on me, but we don't have the same build. They might work."

Jensen felt something brush against his hand as he made his way out of the room to give Jared some privacy. Beside him was a clipping of long wet hair that the vacuum attachment had missed. Without thinking about it and without stopping his forward movement, he plucked it out of the air, and casually tucked it away in a pocket instead of in the garbage disposal. When Jared was settled, Jensen would return to make sure there was nothing else left lying around to be a potential choking hazard for the next person to use the room.

Fortunately, the clothes Jensen had provided stretched. What would have been a loose shirt on Jensen left a taut line between Jared's nipples, and the pants stretched tightly across his thighs. Jensen thought that maybe the towel would have been less revealing. He let his thumb rub over the almost imperceptible lock of hair in his pocket.

"Let's get you settled," Jensen said quietly, squashing his inappropriate reaction, and led the way through the wash station hatch. "No, this way," Jensen called, and Jared stopped his movements in the direction of the hold.

"But I thought—"

"You'll be in the main flight quarters, with the rest of us," Jensen said. "The holds . . . where you were . . . We don't usually carry live cargo. This was an exception, and it won't be happening again. Come on, I'll show you where to settle in."

Jared's movements were far from smooth, but wearing a new style of clothing, and with his new, spacer-style short haircut, Jared looked like he belonged.

Jensen stretched as he left his sleep station. He hadn't had enough sleep, as usual, but a pouch of coffee would soon fix that. As he rubbed his eyes, he drifted into Jared—a shirtless Jared with low-riding, tight stretchy pants—who was exiting his own station. Jensen's libido gave a little hurrah.

Jared just stared at him, equally surprised.

"Sorry—" Jensen began.

"You're wearing glasses!" Jared said.

"Oh," Jensen said, and shrugged. "I usually stick with contact lenses, but sometimes the eyes need a rest."

"Oh, okay." Jared cleared his throat. "So how do we find Adrianne?"

Jensen blinked again. _Oh, right._

Jensen said, "We have some maintenance stuff to take care of before we go anywhere. But the first stop is Echelon. Enough people pass by there—someone must have heard something."

"I thought you said she was in—"

"Aurit," Jensen finished for him, and yawned. "I did. But before we go way the hell out there, it would be good to have some sort of corroboration."

"Oh. Is there something I can help with? I feel useless."

"First: coffee. After that we need to empty out the solid engine emissions, and then to clean out the cargo holds," Jensen said, running through his mental to-do list. Then he winced, feeling his cheeks flush when he glanced at Jared. "Not that—I mean, you don't have to—"

Jared's mouth was set in a grim line. "Tell me what we have to do," he said.

After a pause, Jensen said, "The bedding and the things that cannot be properly disinfected will be incinerated, and the hold will be irradiated. But not right now." He nodded towards the galley. "Breakfast first."

Jensen smiled as he watched Felicia and Jared talking in the observation room. Something Felicia said caused Jared to throw back his head and laugh. Out the window, Cormia station was clearly visible, and its tranquil floating belied the speed at which they all were travelling as they orbited the planet.

Kim called to him from Command. "Jensen, where did you put the readings from—"

"Didn't take 'em yet. Just getting to it." He left the merry sounds of laughter and went back to work.

"Hey, Kim, what would you say to an Echelon pit-stop before we head out again?" Jensen sighed heavily. "I just . . . I need to relax, let loose a little. This has been the contract from hell."

"And nothing says 'relax' like hours of meaningless sex?" Kim smirked at him, then glanced sideways as another burst of laughter made its way to them. "Pants feeling kinda snug these days?" Jensen didn't answer, and Kim smiled to show she was teasing, following it up with a soft, companionable shoulder bump. Then she continued, more seriously. "Sounds perfect, actually. Enough ships go through there that there should be no problem for me to get a lift back to Newstart."

"You're leaving?"

"Yeah. It's time for me to go," Kim said. "The boys are waiting for me, and the longer I'm away . . ."

Jensen nodded, and then frowned. He floated over to a console and began to access the ship's funds.

"Everything okay?" Kim asked.

"Do you have any idea how much I hate that question?" Jensen asked her, as he navigated the complicated menu system. "Ah, there it is." He waved her over. "Had to check that we could afford the docking fees."

She looked over his shoulder. "Shit! Is that all? I thought you got paid for the Newstart thing."

Jensen closed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Stowaway fees, remember?" he said, and Kim winced. The council's decision: they accepted the expulsed Newstarters, but since they were not listed as crew and did not have the needed paperwork to land at Cormia Station, the council would treat them as stowaways, which incurred stowaway fines on the ship that brought them.

"We'll be okay," Jensen said. "I've already lined up another job. Pay's almost nothing, but it should be enough to get us by."

"But you don't even have enough for fuel—"

"We're good. The Impala had a record of the supply credit owed from Newstart, and the station is allowing me to transfer the credit to them. For a hefty fee, of course. But we—I—can restock, and the station will take care of the hassle of straightening out the paperwork with Newstart."

Kim widened her eyes and arched her eyebrows in her clearest "better them than us" expression, and she let herself float back to her console to help Jensen finalize the administrative tasks needed to leave Cormia's orbit without being blacklisted.

Once they had finished Cormia Station's paperwork and had input the coordinates of the nearest Echelon station, which would only take a few days to reach, Felicia and Jared entered Command. Felicia seemed to be Jared's go-to person for any space-related questions, but when she couldn't answer, they brought the question to Jensen.

"Captain," Felicia asked as they entered. "What does space smell like?" At Jensen's perplexed expression, she continued. "Jared asked. I said it's kind of like burnt barbecued ribs and really hot metal. That's about right, isn't it?"

"Uh," Jensen tried to find a description that might mean something to Jared. He remembered having a barbecue in Felicia's grandparents' back yard before she was born. "Maybe? Sort of, but not quite. I don't know. It's just the smell of space. It's normal." The barbecued ribs hadn't seemed normal, he remembered, and both he and Tim had found them unsettling—more because of the texture than the taste.

"That's not helpful," Felicia said.

"Well, wanna smell it?" Jensen asked. Jared narrowed eyes seemed suspicious, and Jensen figured he should explain. "The smell sticks to anything exposed to space for a time, so the hold will smell like space once it's been irradiated. You can take a whiff once we're done."

Jared nodded.

"Okay," Jensen said, and he looked over to Kim. "We'll do a decontamination roll of both cargo holds. It should be done before we get new cargo, anyway. May as well take care of it now."

Jensen refused to let anyone enter the hold without donning a full protective suit, including rebreather.

"No, like this." He adjusted the seal of the helmet on Jared and Felicia's suits and gave them a once-over, showing them how to check one another for improper seals.

"Perfect time to start Basic Crew Skills 101," Jensen told them, reminding himself to be patient as he adjusted the fit of Jared's helmet again. Even just properly outfitting them both had quadrupled the time this task required.

No longer teeming with people, the hold was back to its usual quiet. The Cormia Station Med Team hadn't bothered with a cleanup. They had moved everyone they could onto the station as soon as they were able. Except Jared. Soiled clothing floated in mid-air, along with some personal effects, like a hat, a kid's toy, and other detritus. Though it wasn't depressurized, Jensen had cut off the oxygen circulation to this area once all passengers had been cleared. The sleep-sacs hung from their tether-hooks, and as Jared, Felicia, and Jensen made their way around the hold they occasionally brushed against them, creating a ghostly ripple. Nothing here was salvageable. The cost of properly sanitizing what remained far outweighed the cost of simply replacing them.

Jensen began the tedious process of stuffing everything into a large, expandable bag.

"See anything you want?" he asked Jared.

"No," Jared said, quietly, and he seemed to shrink down as he filled a bag of his own, working his way back to the airlock. "There's nothing I want here." Jensen wondered what he had been looking for and failed to find.

When they had rounded up everything, and each bag had expanded to a height that dwarfed Felicia, Jensen fixed a flexible flashing tracker about the size of fingernail onto each bag. Then he entered the airlock where the other two waited and sealed the hold. Jensen made them sit for through a thorough decontamination. He'd insisted that the Metwrk station technicians install a small portable decontamination unit before he left. It wasn't large enough to handle the cargo holds, but easily took care of the Impala's other modules. Each of the modules on the Impala had been sealed and decontaminated. When the procedure was finished, they exited the airlock and Jensen secured it.

Jensen spoke to Kim in the Command module. "Clear. Take her for vent and exposure."

"Roll underway." Kim's voice could be heard through the ship.

The Impala's rotation was smooth and could easily have been missed if not for the planet that suddenly came into view through the porthole. The planet loomed larger as Kim decelerated to slowly tighten the orbit, bringing the Impala closer to the planet.

"Roll complete," Kim said. "Standby for venting." The Impala's warning alarm sounded and yellow lights flashed along the walls.

"Watch," Jensen said to Jared and Felicia, who had turned to ask. "You'll like it." Jensen's father had never understood his fascination was this tedious aspect of ship maintenance, and Jensen had never been able to explain.

With the alarm still sounding, the warning lights flashed red in the hold, easily seen through the airlock windows. They became a solid red as a crack opened in the furthest wall and the sound of the hold's alarm disappeared. The two large bags were immediately sucked out along with a couple little somethings that they had overlooked. There was no way to tell what the miscellaneous little bits were; they moved too fast to be identified.

Jensen could easily watch, over and over, those first few seconds' exposure to space's vacuum, the whooshing sound that should have been there, but wasn't, the escaping air that could be seen as a fleeting puff in the outer floodlights before the molecules dispersed: he never got tired of it. Once the hold doors were fully opened, exposing the entire cargo hold to space, Jensen turned to share it with Jared, and his smile fell away at Jared's horrified expression.

"Jared?"

"We were _inside_ there," Jared said in a thin voice. His face was pale. "You . . . you could have done that at any time, and we would have . . ."

"Jared—" Jensen paused, searching for something to say, and not sure he entirely understood the problem. "You were never in danger. We would never have done that. And there are safeguards and—"

"I'll be in my room." Jared flipped around and left through the shortened C-tube as Jensen stared after him.

"Jared?" Felicia called. She hurried after him, leaving Jensen standing by the airlock, alone.

"Rolling for exposure." Kim announced, and the planet slowly moved out of view. As the open hold turned towards the system's sun, the airlock windows, and all exterior windows, automatically darkened until they were too opaque to see through, but he knew the hold was now bathed in unfiltered sunlight. Even from that distance, the radiation, in addition to the heat, would be enough to sanitize the hold surfaces, quickly and efficiently. Jensen felt the shudder of the outer doors closing. The yellow warning lights blinked off, though the hold lights still shone red, and would remain so, until the area was fully repressurized.

"Jensen," Kim's said. "We're complete and good to go."

"Okay," he acknowledged. The red warnings lights turned off. Now would have been the perfect time for them to enter and get a whiff of space. Jensen left the hatch closed, turned around and made his way back, pausing before Jared's closed sleep station door. Then he continued to Command.

The next morning, Jensen entered the galley, where Jared was just finishing his breakfast.

"Okay, come with me," Jensen said. "Let's finish that tour," Jensen said.

"Okay, what else is there?" Jared asked.

"Conditioning. " He said it loud enough for Felicia to hear in Command. She and Kim were deep in discussion about a navigating technique, but she stuck a thumbs-up out the hatch to show she'd heard.

"A workout?" Jared's skeptical tone, accompanied by the smirk, told Jensen a lot about the man.

"Yep. We let it slide during the last contract." Jared's face became stone and Jensen hurried on. "But it's time to get back on track. It's a daily requirement. There's no . . . whatever—hay baling, or chopping wood, or heavy engines to lift—here," Jensen told him, and a shadow passed over Jared's face once more. It made Jensen wish he could take back his words and rephrase them. He hadn't meant to remind Jared about his former life. He only wanted to drive home the point that Jared's muscle mass, built by whatever work he used to do, was going to take a serious hit while he travelled with them.

"Your body's designed for a gravity environment," Jensen tried again. It was something that even the newest of crewmembers already understood. "You need to compensate."

Jared flexed with a pointed eyebrow, and Jensen's eyes were pulled to the play of muscles. "Actually, that's okay, I think I'm good," Jared said.

Jensen swallowed before continuing in a tone that brooked no discussion. "It's a shipboard rule. For everyone, including you if you want to travel with us." Jensen moved towards the C-tubes and left Jared to catch up.

They entered the opposite C-tube of the one that led to Jared's hold. The hold on this antipode was much smaller in size, and the rest was taken up by a decent sized conditioning room.

"Refuse the daily conditioning," Jensen said, as they pushed themselves through the passage, "and we'll drop you at the nearest station."

On this point, Jensen wouldn't budge. Gravity had, in extreme cases, been known to snap the brittle bones of long-distance spacers who didn't bother with strength training. When Jared said nothing, Jensen glanced back at him and stopped outside the hatchway to the conditioning room. Jensen needed this not to be another thing Jared resented him for.

"Jared, you're in amazing shape." Jensen let some of his true admiration show through. "And you're a big man. If you want to be able to walk when you get planet-side, when you find Adrianne," Jensen hated the twisting feeling in his gut every time he brought up her name, "you need to do this. Every day. Non-negotiable." Jensen pointed to the instructions, inscribed onto the walls in his father's choppy scrawl. "It's all there: the daily regimen."

Jensen unstrapped one of the machines. "Just make sure to refasten them when you're done. Leaving the straps to float around loose can be a hazard. When we're going to be in orbit for a bit, we activate the gravity rotation but , for now, it's a lot of straps and bands for resistance."

Jensen got Jared set up and then strapped himself into the recumbent bicycle which had been fastened, for space considerations, almost directly over top of Jared, who was being pulled onto the treadmill surface by a bungee cord contraption. Jensen put on some music and for a few minutes neither said anything as their heart rates slowly increased. Jared broke the silence.

"Felicia said you grew up on the Impala. What was that like?" It was the first personal question Jared had asked him since before Metwrk-2. Most of their communication recently had been questions like "How do I open this?" or something that only required a one-word answer.

Jensen began to speak, but stopped, unsure how to answer. He finally just shrugged. "I don't know. It was normal, I guess."

"Capt—Jensen, Kim told me the likelihood of finding Adrianne again is tiny. Microscopic. That true?" He continued before Jensen could answer. "And before, when I asked about going forward in time: is there really no way to go back?"

Jensen closed his eyes against the pain in Jared's voice. "No, there's really not. When you going forward, time gets . . . dilated, I guess. And more so the closer you get to the speed of light. It's why families on long distance voyages travel together. Why they are so close-knit." He paused and debated how personal he should get with Jared, but they were going to be spending a lot of time together. "The caravan was my family—I had uncles, cousins, grandparents, and people who were as close as blood. They're all dead now, for any practical purpose, or I am to them." Jensen punched the button to increase the speed, and waited the frustrating second for the machine to respond. "They were hard-core distance haulers: took long jumps, one after the other, mostly to supply the distant outposts. The probability that our paths will cross again, in space and time, is so fucking remote. . . It's why being cast out literally meant that my Dad and I were dead to them. It's taken very seriously—I mean, they hold a fucking wake." He wanted not to sound angry and bitter, but it was a lost cause.

Abruptly, Jensen didn't want to talk anymore, even though Jared looked captivated. He unstrapped himself and ignored Jared's surprise.

"Looks like you've got the hang of it. Follow that exercise routine on the wall," Jensen opened hatch to reveal a startled Felicia with her hand extended, about to enter. "And if you can't figure out the machines, ask Felicia." He launched himself out of the conditioning module and propelled himself down the corridor.

The tiny screwdriver head slipped off Jensen's glasses, again, and Jensen threw everything away as he roared in frustration.

"Problems?" Kim glanced his way, looking up from the photo of her kids. With his teeth clenched, Jensen watched the frame, lenses, tiny screws, and screwdriver bounce off in different directions. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Everything I say is wrong!"

Kim's mouth twisted in confusion. "What?"

"With Jared. I just—I don't even know! I say the wrong things, and it brings everything back and he's hurting, and then I want to say sorry but . . . sometimes I don't even know why." He sighed again. "Half the time I don't even notice anything's wrong until he's shut down and Felicia's glaring at me."

"And you like him. And he's straight. And we're looking for his fiancée," Kim said, and he watched her search for the right words. Her eyes were sad when she looked at him. "I wish I knew what to say, Jensen. But you and Jared? There's no happy ever after here. Don't do this," she pleaded. "He can't be what you want."

Jensen said nothing as he gathered the parts of his glasses before the tiny screw got lost. So many technological advances and this was still the most reliable eyewear. Most of the time.

"We'll arrive at Echelon tomorrow," Kim continued. "Go out with Felicia, pick up, fuck 'em into oblivion, and get it out of your system. Move on. I'll babysit Jared."


	8. The Search: The Lost Ship

An automatic ping from the Impala alerted Jensen that they were within three hours of Echelon. Jensen acknowledged it before it could ping him again. He listened to Felicia and Kim laughing in the observation deck as Kim imparted wisdom gained from many previous Echelon visits about which places had a fancy dress code, and which were clothing-optional. Jensen wandered into the galley and took out a container of Amberri carrots.

"Okay, so what's a 'paragraph eleven, subsection three'?" Jared floated over to where Jensen was eating. He let himself bounce onto the wall beside Jensen, and grabbed a hand hold before he floated off.

Jensen coughed until he had cleared the tiny bit of masticated vegetable that had gotten stuck in his airway. Then he wiped his eyes, and croaked, "What?"

"Felicia and Kim—talking about Echelon contracts. But they won't tell me what it is. They just laugh and look at each other and laugh some more."

Jensen carefully swallowed his next mouthful, then stretched back and yelled down the corridor to Kim. "You're married!"

"Not dead!" She shouted back, and he chuckled as he took another bite.

"So what's Echelon?"

Jensen's throat felt thick with embarrassment as he swallowed. "Echelon is a . . . bordello station franchise, I guess you'd call it. They're all over settled space. Strange that you haven't heard of them." Now that he'd said it, he wasn't that surprised that Echelon had steered clear of the continuous fighting around Jared's planet. Jensen put aside the rest of his meal. He couldn't seem to get away from fucking Newstart. "It started out as just one small station near a mining colony resupply base, and sort of grew from there. They're all over the place now. Impeccably clean and strict codes of conduct. They have a universal, customizable contract that everyone modifies according to their preferences and signs. Most trustworthy place in the universe."

"Oh." Jared looked at him. "You going?"

Jensen shifted his foothold on the anchor bars. "Yeah, I am." He cleared his throat again. "You can too."

Jared seemed shocked. "No, I can't. Adrianne—"

_Stupid, Jensen,_ he told himself. "Of course, sorry."

Jared gave him a small smile that showed he hadn't taken offense. "I know you all do thing differently here, but we're promised to each other. And I take stuff like that seriously."

"Good for you," Jensen said with a nod. Jared looked at him sharply, but then his smile relaxed. Jensen offered Jared a vegetable before he slid the bin back into the refrigerated storage area.

"And the paragraph-subsection stuff?" Jared asked as he accepted it. Then he frowned at the purplish heart-shaped thing and turned it around in his hands.

Jensen closed his eyes and shook his head with a rueful smile, wondering if Kim had intended him to have the conversation with Jared. "Paragraph eleven is a three-way. Subsection three is two males, one female."

"Oh," Jared said, and then he continued with an uncertain laugh. "So you getting a 'paragraph eleven'?" He gave a nervous half-smile.

"Umm, no," Jensen said. Jared began to nod, and Jensen found himself not wanting to risk the status quo. But here it was: a chance to put it all on the table. "Not this time," Jensen continued, "but if I did, I'd opt for subsection two."

Jared blinked, looking up from the vegetable.

"No female participation," Jensen explained.

"Ah . . . oh."

"Yeah." Jensen waited to see if Jared had anything to say—or to reveal—but he seemed to have run out of questions. Jensen patted him on the back, and left the galley. That answered that, as far as Jared's predilections. It had been a long-shot anyway.

"All set?" Jensen asked Felicia. She nodded, accepted the visitor's sensor that Jensen held out to her, and pressed the sticky little disk onto the back of her hand. The skin-bonding glue in the sensor would activate as soon as they passed through the docking corridor into the station and it would only release when they exited through it.

"Oh yeah! I mean, all the stories I heard about this place. . ." Felicia said. Her body was practically vibrating with excitement. "I can't believe I'm here. Dad would flip."

"Nah, he'd think you were a chip of the old block," Jensen corrected, smiling at the memories.

She screwed up her face. "Ew. That's my _dad_. It's just . . . gross."

Jensen smirked. "Yep, sometimes it was." She hit him.

Kim's call cut short his barking laugh. "Jensen!"

"Here," he replied, and he could feel the tension, eased momentarily by simple and welcome laughter, reassert itself. Felicia caught on to the changed mood and stilled.

"It's Jared," Kim said. "Says he saw Adrianne."

Jensen's eyes widened. "Be right there."

Jensen heard Jared before he and Felicia reached Command.

"There!" Jared was shouting. "It's her! Right there by the vendor's stall. Shit, she's leaving! I need to go!"

"Wait—" Kim said. "You can't disembark without a pass! Here's Jensen!" Jensen didn't mistake the relief in her voice.

"Tell me," he said to Jared.

"Adrianne! There! I have to go!"

Jensen nodded to Kim. "Tell the station that Jared is going instead of Felicia, and then arrange for another pass." Without a word, Felicia peeled the pass from her hand and Jared stuck it on his. Jared zipped by Jensen on their way to the airlock, flying out the docking corridor as soon as the hatch opened.

"Adrianne! Wait! Adrianne!" The young blond woman turned around with a puzzled frown at Jared's hollering, as did everyone else in the hub, and her eyes widened to see Jared barrelling straight towards her. Jared was unable to stop himself in time, but the woman managed to brace herself just before delivering a strong blow to Jared's chin which sent him tumbling away.

She did bear a striking resemblance to Adrianne, Jensen saw as he approached, but her chin was too pointed and her face was a bit rounder. Jensen thought it fortunate that she agreed to let it go after his profuse apology and explanation. The peace officers of Echelon were not so understanding. Jared was escorted back to the Impala, and Jensen, as captain, was given an official notice of reprimand because of his crewman's behaviour.

"He stays here tonight," the grim-faced man told him. "The rest of you are still welcome, _but_ if something like that happens again, you'll all be permanently barred and an alert will be sent to our other stations. You might be able to petition them to enter if you have a good explanation, but that would be at their discretion." Jensen nodded his understanding and the peace officer left.

Jared said nothing on the way back to the Impala, and he was subdued as he made his way to Command and stared in hurt confusion at the station's video feed displaying on the Impala's main screen.

"But I saw her," Jared said, and the broken sound tugged at Jensen's heart.

"They looked a lot alike, and from far away, I can see how—"

"I thought we'd found. . ." Jared's last word was indecipherable as he broke into sobs. Then he stopped. "There!" His hand shot out as he pointed at a blond figure in the distance. "It's her!"

Kim raised her eyebrows in concern as she looked at Jensen. Jensen took a steadying breath.

"Hang on," Jensen told him. He slid past Jared and brought up another angle, and then another. "All ships have full access to station feeds in public spaces. There's no expectation of privacy except in specifically designated areas," Jensen explained. He wished he had thought to verify it the first time, but he'd shared Jared's enthusiasm. After two more tries, Jensen found a camera that showed a clear shot of the woman, and Jared didn't need to see a close-up before he deflated.

"She could be here, though, couldn't she?" he asked the room, as he looked at the people on screen milling around the station.

No one answered until Kim said, with a shrug. "I guess it's possible, but—"

"Okay. You can go do your thing," Jared said to Jensen, and his voice had firmed up. "I'm going to see if I can find her." He turned to Kim. "Can you show me how to switch the cameras?"

Kim looked to Jensen and her hands turned up in a tiny gesture of helplessness. Jensen had seen her sad eyes as she watched Jared stare out into space. She knew, much better than Jared did, how tricky it was to be separated from loved ones in time and space. In theory, it was possible to predict the differential flow of time; in practice, it was impossible. But Jensen would catch Kim working on it in her downtime, trying to account for every acceleration, every vector change, every pull of gravitational fields they passed near—wondering how old her children would be when she made it home.

When Jensen said nothing, Kim finally nodded. "Okay, Jared. Go ahead, you two," she said to Jensen and Felicia. "We're good here." When she saw that Jensen was hesitating, she leaned in and whispered, "You need a break. Clear your head. I've got this. Go."

Jared hadn't stopped studying each person who entered the field of view.

As Jensen left the Impala for the second time, now with Felicia beside him, he knew that he would feel Jared's eyes on him all evening, wishing for him to be someone else.

Jensen blinked and blinked again. He kept his body perfectly still as the walls kept twirling. It was fascinating, and a bit nauseating. Jensen just let himself go, taking it all in. The walls moved and zigzagged, and he laughed as he tried to reach out to grab a handhold.

"Jensen?"

It was Jared. Of course it was Jared. Jared appeared in his left periphery and danced a somersault until he disappeared out from the bottom of Jensen's field of vision.

"Jared?" Jensen said, with a bit of a slur, and then he smiled wide as Jared floated back into view. Jensen held out a hand to catch him, but missed.

"You okay?" The world stopped spinning, and Jared was a strong anchoring presence at his side. Jared's large hands grabbed him as he spun, one held his arm and the other had snagged the fabric of his pants, holding Jensen perpendicular. From this angle, Jensen had a really great view inside Jared's nostrils. Jensen laughed. The laughter stopped when he noticed that he was only a short shimmy away from Jared's crotch. Fortunately, before he was able to act on that realization, Jared had spun him around to face him properly.

"I'm great." Jensen said, and let his eyes wander across Jared's face.

"Wait here, I'll get Kim. She's sleeping."

"No, really, I'm fine. Just tasted some of the local flavours. Men, and drinks—LOTS of drinks— and it's all good." He was taken by another bout of laugher. "Fuck, I love Echelon!"

Jared looked much too serious. "Here, let me just —"

"Don't." Jensen pushed Jared's helping hands away. "I'm fine. Why aren't you asleep?"

"Was watching people on the station," Jared said, "and I heard you bumping around."

"Watching people on the . . ." Jensen said, and then he stopped. His good mood vanished, leaving a low simmering anger and discontent. He didn't even know why he was angry. When Jared tried to grab his arm as he listed backwards, he jerked away. It threw off his trajectory so that he banged his head into the wall instead of entering the hallway, and it took him a few seconds to adjust.

"Can take care of myself," Jensen said. "Done it a long time." And he propelled himself into his sleep station with only a few minor bruises.

"How are you feeling?" Jared asked, sliding quietly into the observation deck behind Jensen.

Jensen stretched, yawned, and then chuckled weakly. "I'll survive." He was silent a moment. "Jared . . . about last night. I don't really do that sort of thing. I mean, the guys, sure. But getting shit-faced like that. . . pretty much never. What you saw, that wasn't me."

Jared nodded. "I know." Jensen raised an eyebrow and Jared shrugged. "Kim told me."

"Yeah, okay," Jensen said. "Just so you know."

"And about yesterday," Jared said, and stared hard at an invisible spot on the wall. "I didn't mean to freak out and get you in trouble. I was just so sure it was her."

"I get it. We all do."

"I got a tip on Adrianne," Kim announced as she joined them in the observatory. She yawned and took a sip of coffee. "While Jared was playing needle-in-a-haystack and you and Felicia were sowing your wild oats or whatever, I had a chat with the stationmaster here." She paused for effect. "She said one of the old timers knows something about Osric's ship."

"Where?"

"He frequents Flotsam's Bar. Every night apparently," Kim said, with a self-satisfied smile. That contagious hopeful look was back in Jared's eyes. "The name is Richings."

"Okay, we'll check it out tonight." Jensen nodded to Jared as he spoke. "But we've got hours still. Go get a workout in," Jensen suggested. He felt the heat of Jared's brilliant smile, before Jared turned around and snagged Felicia's hand to drag her with him. She screeched as he manhandled her down the corridor, and had it been possible to bounce in space, Jensen knew that's what Jared would be doing.

Jensen tilted his head to Kim, who was tapping her fingers in an un-Kim-like fashion.

"You coming with us to the bar tonight?" he asked.

"I can't. Won't be here."

"Already?" he asked, staring at her in surprise. "You found a spot?"

"Yeah, newish sloop heading towards Newstart. Fast. Willing to make an unscheduled stop to let me off at Station Seven. They leave soon. I already sent them my stuff. I'm going to say bye to Jared before he gets all sweaty and then I'll take off. Already talked to Felicia while you were sleeping it off."

He pressed their foreheads together then gave her a peck on the cheek. "Have an amazing life."

"You too."

"Damn. I'll miss you."

"Jensen, do me a favor," she said. "Don't tell Jared where I'm going."

"Kim . . . everything that happened? That was me. My mess. You got us to the station _alive_. If you have to remember it at all, remember that."

The wan smile she gave him made him suspect that she wasn't going to take his advice.

"Seriously, Jared," Jensen said as they entered Flotsam's Bar. "Even without Kim's lead, this is the first place I'd come to for information."

The hubbub in the bar ceased for a few seconds when they entered before it revved up again.

Jared's head swiveled around. "We need to find him."

"That's him." Jensen nodded to a man slumped at the far end of the bar.

"How do you know?"

"I've seen his type."

"Well, come on! Let's—hey!" Jared said, as Jensen took him by the arm and directed him towards a couple empty barstools. Jensen could tell he was annoyed.

"There's protocol in these places," Jensen said quietly but firmly. The low gravity in this portion of the Echelon station dragged on Jensen as they walked to the bar, and the second time he stumbled, he resolved to increase his workouts. "Not much, but still. Things will go a lot quicker if they don't take us for complete newbies."

"I _am_ new," Jared protested. "And I need to find her!"

"I know you do. But you got me, and I've been coming to these places since I was in diapers. Trust me."

"Yeah?"

Jensen nodded. "Drinks first. Then we go over."

"Fine." Jared's voice was tight.

Jensen flagged the bartender and ordered two Libertine scarlets.

"My dad would be horrified," Jared confided to Jensen as he took his drink. Jensen blinked at him, not quite understanding the problem.

"He always said that a man should never drink from anything other than glass." Jared gestured to the lidded plastic tumblers with straws that the bartender handed them.

Jensen shrugged. "It's common practice out here. I've very rarely drunk from anything else."

Jared gave a noncommittal grunt. "So how can you tell that's Richings?"

"He's the oldest in here," Jensen said, and cast a glance to the end of the bar. "That doesn't always mean anything, but he has the look of a long-hauler, a lifer."

The man held himself with some effort, sitting with a pronounced slouch as if his body wanted to melt into the floor. Even through the long sleeves of his flight suit, the lack of muscle tone spoke to a long time in space, perhaps without the strict resistance training that Jensen followed. The man's head bobbled now and then, as if holding it up against the pull of even this minimal gravity was an effort. Despite his age, his thin face was smooth and wrinkle-free. And he had the look of someone who could no longer be surprised.

Jared took a half-hearted sip of his drink, and his leg bounced with the need for action. Jensen sighed and pushed his chair back.

"Come on," Jensen said, and he and Jared made their way to the man at the bar.

"Evening, sir." Jensen said. The greeting was still used, though it had little application to life up here. "I'm looking for information."

"Aren't we all," the man said, without looking up. Encouraged that he hadn't be told to leave, Jensen took a seat on the stool next to him.

"I'm Captain Ackles. This here's Padalecki. And we were told that a fellow by the name of Richings might be able to help us." That did get a reaction, and Jensen found himself being appraised from under a raised, stern-looking eyebrow. He continued. "I'm trying to track down a buddy. Captain Osric Chau of the Prophet? He sort-of missed our meet-point."

The old man—and anyone within hearing distance—fully turned to look at Jensen. The silent attention rippled outward until all eyes were focused on Jared, Jensen and the man at the bar. Jared shifted uncomfortably and his eyes darted around. Jensen remained still and returned the stare.

"I'm Julian Richings," the man said. "What was the ship, again?"

"The Prophet, left Newstart and was denied entry at Bardock." Jensen said, and wasn't comforted when the man's gaze sharpened.

"Captained by?"

"Chau."

Richings nodded. "Yeah. I heard about that one."

Richings looked pointedly at his drink and when Jensen nodded to the barkeep, the stooped man settled in to tell his story. At this point, even the dishwasher had poked his head out and was listening intently. In distant corners, linked by regular long-distance cargo ships, word of mouth was not that much slower than messaging. News got missed, especially in backward systems without decent repeater arrays.

"Was at Michemin Outpost a few weeks ago," Richings continued. "As I was heading out, a salvager came by with a ship in tow. Told a story about encountering the remains of the Prophet. Micro-meteor storm, they thought. They were able to get it started, but life systems were down." He looked steadily at Jensen. "No survivors."

Jensen closed his eyes. There would have been nothing Osric could have done. By the time a micro-meteors hit would have been detected, they might have had seconds—probably not long enough to know what would kill them. He wondered what it had punctured. A ship's forward plating would have stopped most micro debris, but it only took one unlucky hit in a weak area. Jensen knew the Impala front to back, and he knew that no matter how much reinforcement he added, it would only take one unlucky strike.

Then again, there was the possibility that the salvager was lying, and had pirated a limping ship.

"Who found them?" he asked. Jensen could tell by Richings' tiny smile and nod that Richings knew the reason for the question and thought it a good one.

"Don't remember the name," he said slowly, tilting his head and fixing Jensen with an unblinking stare. "Not. Anyone. I knew."

Jensen nodded his understanding. Suspect information, then.

Then Jensen remembered who else was listening and spun around to Jared. Jared was pale with a greenish tinge, and his whitened knuckles gripped the bumper rail of the bar. Jared had completely missed the nuance in Richings' words that had been so clear to Jensen.

"Jared, wait! Give me a chance to explain." When Jared didn't answer, Jensen continued, leaning in to speak into Jared's ear without being overheard. No one cavalierly threw around unfounded suspicions of piracy in a crowded bar; it would be a sure-fire way to be targeted. "We don't know anything," he said. "Not really. There are details missing."

"She's gone? I just. I don't . . ." The bleak hopelessness in Jared's voice made Jensen need to do anything to take it away.

"We don't know that," he repeated. "Even Richings thinks it's unreliable. But we have a new place to look. Let's head to Michemin Outpost."

Jared said nothing, but let himself be led away.

Jensen pinched his eyes closed and pressed his fingers against his temples. He had to stop saying rash things in response to Jared's pain. Michemin wasn't nearby, and while newer ships were more efficient and faster, Jensen would need to plan in a fuel stop for the Impala along the way, which would add time to their voyage. Plus, he needed money to pay for the very significant fuel expense.

As he took another look at his options, Felicia made her way into Command. She'd just come from a workout, and the sweat lay across her skin in a solid, thin layer. With quick, forceful movements, she wiped her face and arms with a small towel.

"What's wrong?" Jensen asked. Then he threw her a grin. "One of the workout bands snap again?"

"Don't care about the workout," she said, and her voice was sharp with frustration. "It's Jared. He's hurting, I know. But he's snappy, and pissy, and generally making me insane. And the way he's been talking to you . . ." She shook her head.

Jensen closed his eyes again. "It's just the not knowing, and waiting around here when he wants to go right now."

"You think she's dead?" Felicia asked, after a moment.

Jensen sighed. "I think it doesn't matter if she is. We're not going to find her anyway. It's like chasing a ghost."

"So tell him that!"

"I did. One of the first things I said to him when he decided to stay on the Impala. He said he needed to try, that she was worth it." Jensen frowned at an incoming message and sent a quick reply.

"What's that," Felicia asked.

"We'll need a stop to refuel, so I'm taking a job. Destination is a minor planet off the main routes. Arranged for payment in fuel rods."

She scoffed. "Who pays in fuel?"

"Smugglers," Jensen said, looking her straight in the eye. He looked away first.

"Thought you were going legit."

Jensen's gave a short, self-mocking laugh. "Yeah, that really worked out well." He shook his head. "I don't see another way of getting to Michemin anytime soon. Haven't told Jared yet. Don't imagine he'll like it much."

 

"What's the cargo?""

Jensen shrugged. "Varied. Medicinal herbs, drugs, a good amount of salt, and probably something else that they won't tell me about . . ."

"Lovely." She thought for a moment and continued. "You know, I don't think the drug-running will faze Jared—and I'm sure he doesn't expect you to go broke taking him around—but in this mood, he's going to be angry that getting to Michemin will take longer with a pit stop."

Jensen sighed. She wasn't wrong.

Their flight path took them zipping past Newstart, close enough for the Impala's enhanced telescope to show them the blurry little dot of a planet. Jensen slammed his palm down to kill the view when Jared entered Command. Jared froze in surprise, and opened his mouth to ask when they heard the chime of an incoming message.

Felicia was closest to the communications panel. Her eyes widened and a smile split her face.

"Jensen!" she said, "We're still on an amplified route; it's a message from Kim on the repeaters." Then she hesitated. "It's for you. Marked personal."

"Okay, I'll take it in my station." He slipped into his sleep station and transferred the audio to his tragus earpiece while sending the video component to display in front of him.

Kim's face filled the screen and he took a breath of surprise. Her wide smile didn't reach her dark, baggy eyes.

"Hey Jensen!" Kim's recording began. "I just felt like talking and thought I'd send you a message now that I'm home. I'll probably be a grandmother or something before it gets to you since I don't imagine you'll be by this way any time soon. Did Jared ever find his girl? I really hope so. It sucks to be away from family." She paused and she dropped the smile.

"Jensen, it's so strange. I mean, I knew it would take some adjustment, but shit!" Her laugh was anything but lighthearted. "And I know it will work out. I do. But today was hard and I need to vent. I don't fit here. I missed so much, and I can't get it back. My kids aren't little kids anymore, and Jim is old—I mean, not old-old, just. . . older. For me, it was two months ago!" She swallowed. "He waited over _ten fucking years_! And they're beautiful boys, Jen! He did such a good job. But . . . they're strangers. I'm not their mother. And it's a weird feeling. It hurts. Everywhere I go, there's all these little reminders." She sighed.

"I wasn't supposed to have been gone so long." Jensen shifted uncomfortably and Kim's recording blinked, narrowed its eyes and stared out at him, almost as if she could see. "And quit it! This is not your fault. I'm not trying to add to that martyr complex of yours. Just saying that had I known, I'd have chosen differently. So I'm telling you, don't mess it up for you. My kid is graduating today. High school. The youngest." She sighed again, and wiped the corner of her eye. "Make it work, Jensen. Don't waste time pining for Jared. It goes faster than you know."

"Her name is Adrianne!" Jared yelled, and Jensen interposed himself between Jared and the minor Michemin official, placing a hand on Jared's heaving chest. The portly man had paled and taken a step back, and Jensen now forced a smile to reassure him.

 

"Easy," Jensen whispered to Jared, who clenched his teeth together and pinched his eyes shut as he visibly sought for calm. In the two months it had taken the Impala to reach the outpost, Jared had regained some his convivial personality, and had once gone a whole cycle without Jensen seeing the bleak look that signaled him thinking about Adrianne. But dealing with the politics involved in getting answers about a ship that had possibly fallen victim to the tacitly condoned piracy endemic in the fringes? That had quickly chipped away at any patience Jared had had.

They left the office with yet another reassurance that the matter had been thoroughly investigated, and that there was no reason to disbelieve the salvager who had brought in the remains of the Prophet. Sure, it was strange that the entire ship's crew was missing, but lack of evidence wasn't enough to prove murder or piracy. There were an infinite number of possibilities. The man had blathered on for another couple minutes, but by then Jensen had stopped listening in order to concentrate on keeping Jared calm and the official in one piece.

"They don't know what happened and they're not even looking for them!" Jared yelled as they left. "Did you hear that asshole?" Jared raised his voice on the last word and glared in back of them.

"These outer systems," Jensen said, "they have—"

"Hey, pretty boy!"

Jensen hadn't realized the dark-haired woman was addressing him until she stepped solidly in front of him. With a loud sigh and a roll of her eyes, she refused to budge. Jensen and Jared came to an abrupt stop so as not to walk into her.

"There now," she said. "Was that so hard?"

"Do I know you?" Jensen asked, irritated, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"No you don't, but I'm about to do you a favor, so watch your tone." She turned to Jared. "I am Captain Miner, and I heard you," she turned her regard to Jared, "yelling to that walking waste-of-space in Special Investigations," she said. "Well, I know what happened to your lost ship." She tilted her head in satisfaction at the shock on Jared and Jensen's faces and continued. "So why don't you two hulking brutes buy me lunch and we'll talk about it?"

"You're looking for that little shit, Chau," she began, with a sunny smile and shrewd, appraising eyes. "Yes, I've seen him. Found him and his people floating along, running out of air in his lifepod. Gave him a ride here. He gambled my couple crewmen out of most of their savings. If you see him, tell him I'd like a word about gratitude." Her words were harsh, but the crinkle in her eye showed her amusement.

Jensen gaped at her. "He's alive?" Jensen asked, with a small hitch in his voice. "His ship was hit by micro-meteors—"

Captain Miner shook her head. "Taken by pirates, you mean. Crew all escaped in a life-capsule when they saw the target lock."

"Was there a blond woman with him? She's about this tall, and really pretty, and her name is—"

"Let me stop you there, Stretch," Captain Miner said. "I didn't get any names but the captain's, and like I said, I picked up Captain Chau and his crew. No passengers. He mentioned something about dropping a bunch of people off in the Gerebund system— some hinky government resettlement thing—before he headed to the Outers with some questionable cargo. No leggy blond, and trust me, I _would_ have noticed." Jared bristled slightly at her salacious smirk.

"Gerebund?" Jensen repeated. "He mention where? That's a big-ass system."

She shook her head. Then Captain Miner's eyes widened and she stared at the doorway. Jensen twisted around and raised his hand until Felicia saw him. Felicia let the door shut behind her and hurried over.

"Thought you were heading back to the Impala," Jensen said.

"Captain," she said, and she sounded out of breath. "There are a few people in front of the Impala's docking corridor, asking questions. I didn't recognise the insignia."

"Sounds like you've poked a bit too hard at the pirate nest," Captain Miner said. "And you've neglected to introduce me to this dazzling sunburst."

Jensen let out an annoyed sigh, and quickly rattled off, "Felicia, this is Captain—"

"Rachel Miner." Captain Miner stood up, letting her chair scrape backwards, and shook Felicia's hand with a confident grip.

"H-hi." Felicia stuttered a bit.

"Why don't you go deal with your little ship issue," Captain Miner said to Jensen, while not taking her eyes off Felicia. "And I will go to my ship and get you all the information I have on our friend, Chau."

"You can just send it to—"

Captain Miner shook her head. "No. I don't use unsecured transmissions here: too many low-lifes creeping around. I'll download the information and Felicia here can bring it back to you."

Jensen was going to object, but he caught Felicia's small, quick nod.

"Fine," he said.

No one impeded Jensen and Jared's way back to the ship, and Jensen thought Jared's large planet-side muscles probably had a lot to do with it. But as Jensen entered the docking corridor, he saw a flash of dark movement from the corner of his eye and knew that he was under observation.

"We have to leave, as soon as Felicia's back," he told Jared. "We're being watched, and I don't know enough about the factions in play here to talk my way out of a confrontation. I'm going to do an emergency detach, so my requesting leave won't tip anyone off. With any luck we can be out of here before they officially target us."

"What do you need?" Jared asked. His dark eyes looked at Jensen with an intensity that took his breath away.

"Secure the hold," Jensen said.

Jensen was doing final calculations in Command when Felicia came back.

"Good. We're leaving. Pretty much right now," he told her. "I've set a tentative flight plan to get us out of here, and I'll fine-tune it as we go. Not ideal, but we've got to leave sooner rather than later."

"Now?" Felicia said in dismay, and Jensen was taken aback.

"Is there a problem?"

"No! Umm. Well, it's just that Rachel—Captain Miner—offered to take me out to one of the local attractions later tonight . . ."

"Oh?" Jensen shot her a shit-eating grin. "Do tell!"

"Not really anything to tell," Felicia said, and looked away as she blushed.

"Uh huh." Jensen smiled. "She's definitely hot."

"I know, right?" Felicia grinned. "We kind of hit it off."

Jensen's smile faded. "You think it could be something serious?"

She laughed. "I don't know! We just met. But," she shook her head with a bemused smile, "I've never met anyone like her."

Jensen closed his eyes against the memory of her father saying the same thing before he left. Almost word-for-word. "You grew up differently, I get that, but you've _got_ to understand something. Out here, you have to make instant decisions—and I'm not talking about piloting; I'm talking about life. A lot of waiting around, and then one quick decision that changes everything."

"What? I don't—"

"If you think there might be something there, with Miner, you have to decide if it's worth finding out." He leaned in, and lowered his voice. "Jared and I have to leave. We've asked too many questions. The Impala's a target if we stay. And Miner probably already has a shipping contract in another system. You've seen how this works. What are the chances of you finding each other again? At these ages?"

Felicia began a slow shake of her head.

Jensen kept talking—he had to make her understand. "Tim met your mom, and made a decision. He knew the score. I couldn't stay, she couldn't come with us. He chose her. I'd hate to see you go—I can't even tell you how much—but if she's 'the One'. . . Felicia, if you stay with us, you risk never seeing her again."

"I . . ." She trailed off and looked at him in confusion and the start of panic. "I left my dad, and I'd take it back if I could. I can't—you're the only real family I have."

"Then stay," he said simply.

"But—"

"Felicia, this is your choice. I just needed to make sure you understood what the choice was," he turned back to his console. "I have to finalize a few things. Think about it, but don't take too long." He saw her reflection on the main panel as she glided slowly out the hatchway.

A short time later, he felt someone behind him and turned around. Felicia's eyes were red and puffed in her blotchy face. But her voice was steady as she asked. "Is there something you need me to help with before we leave?"

"Yeah." He squeezed her shoulder. "Can you do a check of the modules and make sure everything is in place? Jared's strapping down the cargo and—"

The chime of an incoming message interrupted him, and he frowned as he acknowledged it. It wasn't the station.

"Captain Ackles, this is Captain Miner. Fancy seeing you again so soon."

Jensen frowned and said, "How can I help you, Captain? We're kind of busy."

"So I see. Well, here's the thing. I'm not ready for your crewmember to leave just yet, so I have a proposition for you. I would like to default on my current contract—it's a paperwork thing right now; I haven't accepted the cargo yet—and accompany your ship. Would that be acceptable?"

Jensen glanced back at Felicia, whose mouth hung open as she stared at the main screen.

"Yes, that's acceptable," Jensen said. "Looking forward to having you aboard. I'll extend the linking tube as soon as we clear Michemin's pull. Make it fast—I've attracted attention."

"Then this should work well for you," she said, with a self-assured grin. "I captain a fighter, the Demon Blade, and I'll blow them into tiny little molecules of excrement if they dare approach."

Captain Miner smiled sweetly and ended the link.

Jensen let out an incredulous laugh. "What the hell have we done?" Felicia was still unable to speak. Jensen opened a link to Jared. "Hey Jared! We have our own little caravan to Gerebund."

He shook his head again and couldn't stop smiling as he hurried a recalibration. It was about time for his luck to change.


	9. The Search: Adrianne

The Gerebund system, named for the largest habitable planet in the binary star system, was really fucking huge. It held an official alphanumeric designation which no one bothered to remember, and it boasted the most human-friendly environments in the known universe. Jensen cursed its plethora of orbital stations, moon bases, and settled planets for what seemed like the millionth time during the six years they had been searching.

The deported population of Newstart had spread out further than Jensen would have thought possible. Each time Jared found another group of Newstart origin, the information exchange would begin all over again. Each little group was desperate for news of the others. Hundreds of people, conversations, stories: all the same, despite minor differences.

_Do you know so-and-so?_

_Did you hear that this one died?_

_I heard that so-and-so had a family and is working in blah-blah-blah._

_The Prophet? No, sorry, never heard of it._

_I miss the food of Newstart; haven't been able to find anything that tastes quite the same._

_Would you ever think of going back? Some people are, you know._

_Palicki? Yeah, I heard something about that family. Hmmm, now what was it?_

Sometimes they would hear a fanciful, half-remembered story of Adrianne, the beautiful girl with the long blond hair who travelled from planet to planet looking for her lost love. After hearing these stories Jared would be begin searching with renewed vigour, certain that at last they were close. Nothing ever came of it. But Jensen would dutifully ready the Impala, finish any ongoing cargo negotiations, and carry Jared to the next phantom sighting. What had started as a way for Jensen to fulfil his promise and assuage the guilt he refused to acknowledge had become routine, and Jensen no longer thought twice about it as he set a new destination.

While Jensen disliked arriving at a destination, descending into gravity in the hot, sweaty, smelly augmentation suits, to listen once more as Jared's hopes got dicked around, he loved the travelling time itself. No other traveling companion had ever stayed this long, and his partnership with Jared was unrivaled by any of his other brief relationships.

"Those weren't relationships, Ackles," he imagined Kim saying. "They weren't even flings."

The only thing Jensen lacked in his relationship with Jared was a sexual component, and while it was frustrating at times, compared to everything else it was trivial. In all that time, to the best of Jensen's knowledge, Jared had stayed true to Adrianne's memory, remaining on the Impala anytime Jensen, Felicia, and Rachel went to an appointment at Echelon, and quietly looking away if Jensen approached some guy at a bar. It was just how things were, and the pattern was reassuring in its predictability. Felicia and Rachel stayed aboard Rachel's Demon Blade, which provided an added safeguard for the Impala, while the Impala added to Demon Blade's cargo capacity. It worked.

Jensen cut the acceleration, and allowed the Impala to gently coast into the docking clamps at Echelon-G14. This Echelon station looked exactly like its thirteen predecessors that were scattered throughout Gerebund, which in turn were carbon copies of those in other systems.

"Station, this is Captain Ackles. Just confirming we need three visitor passes."

"Four." Jared spoke from behind him.

Jensen cast Jared a puzzled frown and addressed the station again. "Sorry, belay that. Give me a minute." He turned to Jared.

"I . . . I was thinking of maybe coming with you this time," Jared said. At Jensen's poleaxed look, he continued. "You know, get off the ship. . . change of scenery."

"No, yeah. I mean, sure. We can do that," Jensen finally got out. "Let me—I just need to, um—" With a small shake of his head, Jensen opened the link to the station again. "Station, make that four visitors."

"Confirmed," the station controller drawled.

Jensen took a closer look at Jared, who couldn't meet his eyes, and in the face of Jared's discomfort, Jensen pulled himself together and said with strained heartiness, "This'll be great! We can both get out, de-stress, pick up. Station'll never know what hit 'em." He paused, unsure, and then with a few quick keystrokes he sent a form to Jared's console. It chimed and Jared frowned as he leaned forward to read it. Then his eyes widened.

"What's this?" he asked.

"An Echelon contract. Ours are already in the system. Do you," Jensen hesitated but continued, "need help filling it out? There's a FAQ, there at the end, but if there's something you're not sure about, I could—"

"No, that's okay," Jared hastily said, and he cleared his throat. "I'm good."

Jensen busied himself cleaning out the modulation pistons and reapplying lubricant to the moving parts. He could have disassembled any of the equipment in this room, stripped it, cleaned it and reassembled it without hesitation—the fruit of his father's many drills. Jensen slotted the circular component into its slot and pushed it in with more force than was strictly necessary.

Jared hadn't returned from his visit to Echelon.

Jensen took the next piston out and began stripping it down. Jensen wasn't exactly worried, but . . . he had expected him back sooner. Jensen stretched out his shoulder, and his muscles protested. His Echelon session had been thorough, and the man—tall with impressive muscle mass—had followed Jensen's stated desires to the letter. It had hurt, and Jensen still felt the echoing pain with every movement, but not as much as he would have expected from the rough penetration. The guy had known his business. Not a mark was visible—other than around his wrist where the padding had slipped and his repeated twisting had caused the bindings to chafe.

Jensen knew there were a million and one things that could delay Jared. Still . . . Jared was late. Felicia and Rachel had come in a couple hours ago from their room rental, laughing and flashing equally blinding smiles, although Rachel's never lost the slight leer. She was the only person Jensen had met who could swagger in free-fall.

"This is a good thing, Jensen," Felicia had whispered as she passed. "Maybe he's finally moving on, figuring out what he wants that _isn't_ her." He knew she meant well, but that didn't help Jensen feel any better.

Jensen had finished cleaning the modulation pistons and was running a stress check on the interior mid-fuselage when Jared entered through the docking corridor.

"Hey." Jensen forced a casual tone, but Jared started and flushed. "How was your night?" Jensen floated out of the maintenance crawlspace and reoriented himself to Jared, but even then, Jensen couldn't decipher the Jared's expression. Jared avoided Jensen's gaze.

"Uh. Was good." Jared started to make his way past Jensen towards the sleep stations.

"C'mon, your first time! Details, man!" Jensen swallowed hard. This was an important rite of passage for his friend, and he would listen even if it killed him. And it probably would. "So . . ." Jensen continued, "did you . . ." He hesitated. How much did he really want to know about the sexual dalliances of someone who would never be his? ". . . find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah." Jared's soft response was nearly swallowed up by the background hum of ship's machinery.

"Yeah, me too," Jensen lied, and gently rubbed at the buises hidden beneath his sleeve. "Figured I'd see you sooner."

"Went for a walk afterwards," Jared said, after a small pause. "Needed to think."

Jensen studied Jared's scarlet face and decided not to press it. Had it been anyone but Jared, Jensen would have teased and taunted until the whole sordid story came out, but the ghost of Adrianne still hung between them. Still, Jensen thought it might have faded a bit.

"I'll go clean out the modulation pistons," Jared said. Jensen opened his mouth to ask if he was okay, but shut it and just nodded at his retreating back. It wouldn't hurt them to be done twice.

A few weeks later, Jared ran yet another interminable search for any mention of his scattered Newstart countrymen in out-system news reports. Out of the corner of his eye, Jensen saw him look up with a start. They'd stopped at Bardock Station to refuel and resupply on their way to deliver a shipment of erbium metal to a repeater array manufacturer. Jensen usually avoided Bardock (and Metwrk-2 and Cormia) if he could. It didn't seem to bother Jared, but Jensen became increasingly tense the closer they came to those stations. Fortunately, they were easily avoidable most of the time.

"Got something?" Jensen asked.

"Yeah," Jared said. Jensen figured Jared's lack of excitement meant it was a tenuous lead at best. But then Jared continued. "There's a note on a group who returned to settle one of Newstart's moons. There are three Palickis."

Jensen's eyebrows rose, and then he nodded and let himself rotate to face his console. "Well," he said, doing a quick calculation. "We should be able to get there in a couple weeks—"

"No."

Jensen had been ready to input the new destination when Jared's response sunk in. "What?"

"No. I . . . I think we'll let this one go."

Jensen remained with his hand frozen above the console.

Jared was staring at Jensen's hovering hand. "You'd planned to get some work done on the Impala—"

"Oh, that's nothing major," Jensen said. "Can get it done anywhere, and it won't compromise safety."

"Okay, but . . . we've been chasing these tips for so long," Jared looked as if he wanted to continue, and eventually he did. "I don't know if I really remember her. What she looks like, I mean. I have this memory of her, but the details are faded. And we'll both have changed. I think I need to do something different for a bit."

"Yeah?" Jensen felt a pang in his chest, and he couldn't tease out whether it was relief that Jared was moving on, sadness that he had given up, or hope that this might mean there was more room now for Jensen.

"Yeah. Come on." Jared blatantly shifted the conversation. "Let's hit a restaurant. I'm sick of my own cooking. And yours."

As they made their way into the main hub where various food joints could be found, Jensen felt liberated. Now, finally free of Newstart's shadow, part of a caravan family, and walking next to Jared, Jensen's steps had never felt so light. He hadn't realized how much the interminable search weighed on him until Jared ended it. Jensen wondered again what Jared has discovered about himself at their last Echelon visit. He'd been subtly different since that night. More introspective, maybe? Jensen couldn't quite put his finger on the change.

Jensen had entered the little diner and made his way to the counter before he realized that Jared wasn't right behind him. He turned to see Jared with his hand on the door, staring across the open area of the hub at an electrical worker replacing an outer floodlight.

"Jare?" Jensen asked.

"I think I know him," Jared whispered. "It's in the nose and the chin," Jared continued. "I'll be back in a minute." Jared ran across the hub. "Gil?" he yelled. The electrician stopped and turned. Jensen followed slowly and watched Jared embrace the man, who seemed taken aback at first before returning the embrace. They were talking animatedly when Jensen walked up.

"It's the McKinney boy, Gil," Jared said. Jensen knew this excitement. It was Jared's reaction to every breadcrumb they'd followed for the last six years. Jensen felt his stomach twist.

Gil eyed Jensen curiously. "Do I know you too?" he asked.

"No." Jensen shook his head, and Gil turned back to Jared.

"'Cause, like I said, Jared," Gil continued, "some of the others might be remember more about the Prophet. There's quite a bunch of us here. I can introduce you if you want. I mean, I was just a kid when it happened." Jensen stared at him, trying to picture the middle aged man as a child, and failed. Gil smiled at Jared. "I remember you though; you look the exact same, just thinner. Everyone always thought you and Adrianne would get together."

Jensen's eyes darted to Jared who had frozen.

"Yeah, me too," Jared said, only slightly above a whisper. "I just haven't been able to find her, man." Jared's voice broke a bit as he continued, and Jensen put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture of support. "And I've looked. Everywhere. I think she died out there."

Gil's eyes opened wide.

"You don't know? Addie's on Bardock."

Jared's jaw dropped, and as he leaned forward Jensen's hand fell from his shoulder, unnoticed. Their eyes drifted to an observation window, where Bardock loomed large.

"Wuh—what?" Jared asked. Until then, Jensen hadn't been sure he was still breathing.

"Adrianne. She's living down on the planet. She took care of me when I got separated from my parents on one of the ships," Gil said. Jensen felt a cold shiver go through him and pushed it aside. He stared at Jared who was still as a statue. Gil continued speaking, apparently oblivious to the shock his words had caused. "Never did find them. Anyway, Addie and I travelled around looking for you for years, then she settled down and I went off on my own. And that's pretty much it. Met someone, settled down, got a job." He smiled. "It's good to see you. Addie used to talk about you all the time. I've got her address if you want it."

A young woman behind a counter, which displayed a faded "Bardock Shuttles: Bookings," raised her palms to the air in frustration.

"I can't do that sir," she said, again.

Jared tried once more, putting on his best smile and working his sad eyes to their fullest. "But I need to get there today!"

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "The shuttle leaves every two days. I've put you on the very next one: tomorrow."

Jared didn't speak as he and Jensen made their way back to the Impala. Jensen's stomach rumbled its discontent, but it was just as well they had abandoned the planned meal. Jensen didn't think he could keep anything down.

"Jared?" Felicia said when they joined her and Rachel in the galley, and she hurried to Jared in concern.

Jared stared at her for a minute then his face split in a smile. "She's alive! Felicia, we've found her!" Jared exclaimed. "She got off here, before the ship was sent away! She was here all along!"

Jensen's forced smile froze on his face, and he felt the chasm of guilt open up and suck him in.

"Jensen?" Felicia poked her head through the opened airlock to the cargo hold. "Oh, there you are! Where's Jared?"

"In the acclimatization area on the station. Getting ready to go planet-side."

"Oh." She entered the cargo area. "I thought you were going, too."

"I am. Just needed to get a couple things organized," Jensen said. He looked up and let his eyes glide away. "Felicia, tell Rachel I've accepted a contract to haul cargo out-system. Far out-system," Jensen said, and Felicia looked at him in surprise. Usually there was a group discussion and an informal vote on any job they took. Jensen had never made a unilateral decision since they had formed their little ad hoc caravan at the Michemin Outpost. Jensen turned away from her piercing gaze, which she must have inherited from her father, and re-adjusted the already perfectly aligned cargo straps. "You don't have to come if you don't want to," Jensen continued, and ignored her startled expression. "You and Rachel can go anywhere. You're not tied down. And I'll make sure you have something set up before I leave, in case you ever want to head out on your own."

Felicia blinked at him, as if she hadn't understood. "What's happening? You and Jared tired of us?"

"No! Of course not!" Jensen hurried to reassure her. "But it won't be with Jared." He swallowed. "Jared tagged along to find Adrianne, and we found her."

"Tagged along. Riiight." She stared at him as if she could pull out his thought if she tried hard enough. "Don't do anything," she said. "Just wait here. Let me talk this over with Rachel." She stared at him until he nodded. Then she exited the hold with a backward glance, and he saw her jar move as she activated her implant to the Demon Blade before she disappeared into the corridor.

He checked the straps again, and then queried the Impala for the time.

"Shit!" he yelled, and he grabbed his augmentation gear as he rushed off towards the planetary shuttle before he missed the departure time.

The shuttle had landed for over an hour before they were allowed to undo their harnesses. When they were allowed to attempt to get up, it took Jensen several tries. Conceding defeat, Jensen reached down and increased the assistance level on his augmentation suit.

"Come on, Jen," Jared said. Jared had bounded up the moment the harnesses were released, and knocked his head on the ceiling. Some other time Jensen would have laughed at the over-eager coltishness, but today it didn't seem funny. The flight attendant made Jared sit back down and had calmly explained why he should never dial up his suit to full assist right away. Jared had waited through the man's lecture with admirable patience, Jensen thought, considering that it was far from Jared's first time in the augmentation suit. With a tissue held to the small cut on his forehead, Jared now waited impatiently for Jensen to gain his feet, and then he made a beeline for the exit. Jensen followed.

The walk from the runway to the terminal would have been beyond their ability, even with the suits, and Jensen was glad he had arranged transportation service. The small three-wheeled taxi waited for them to clear customs. The driver nodded when Jared showed him Adrienne's address, scribbled by Gil's thick electrician's pencil. It didn't take lon before they were stopped in front of a cluster of single-family housing units.

"Twenty-three. It's twenty-three," Jared said as he looked repeatedly from the address Gil had given him to the housing units. In the distance, Jensen could see the little taxi speed off. "Twenty-three."

Jensen said nothing. There was no chance of either of them getting it wrong. The address was branded in Jensen's memory, and he knew that, ten or twenty years from now, he would still be able to recite it.

Twenty-three was the furthest unit in the grouping. After they had opened the gate and walked up to the door, Jared froze, apparently unable to knock. Jensen waited a moment, then looked at him in confusion,

"Well?" he said.

"This is it. It's . . . it's everything we've been looking for."

"I know." Jensen said, and waited as Jared searched for the words.

"I . . . I'm not sure I remember what she looked like."

"Huh?"

"I mean, I remember her, but . . . the details, like her nose, and mouth . . . maybe I'm not remembering right. And she'll be different. And I've changed. And—"

"Let's find out," Jensen said, and he leaned past Jared to rap sharply on the door. He heard the quick intake of Jared's breath, and gave Jared a little push forward. Bandages should be ripped off quickly.

A rustling came from behind the door just before it opened wide to show a blond woman in her late thirties.

"Hello?" she said.

Jared opened his mouth but didn't speak, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. The woman frowned at the continued silence.

"Yes?" she said, and her voice had taken a harder edge.

With a huff of exasperation, Jensen took over.

"Adrianne?" he said. The woman's eyebrows shot up and she seemed taken aback.

"Not sure if I should be offended or not," she said, with a puzzled smile. She tilted her head to the side and studied them. Jensen wondered if she could tell the difficulty he and Jared were having in the planet's gravity.

"Sam? Samantha, who is it?" a man asked gruffly, walking up beside her, with a young child in tow. He was clearly long past middle-aged. Then the elderly man passed the child to Sam and leaned against the doorframe, blocking their view inside either by accident or by design.

"Yeah? Who are you" he demanded.

"Umm. . . " Jared had recovered his voice. "I'm looking for Adrianne Palicki. I was told she lives here."

"And you are? I don't know you," the man said. While not exactly unfriendly, it was clear that the man had little time for them.

"My name's Jared." Jared held out his hand in greeting but it wasn't returned. "Jared Pada—"

"—lecki." the man finished. All color in the man's cheeks had drained, and he seemed dangerously pale. He gripped the doorframe as if it were the only thing holding him up.

"Dad? Is everything okay?" They heard Sam ask from behind him.

"All this time," he muttered, "and you show up now."

Then his face hardened, and with energy Jensen wouldn't have believed possible, the octogenarian threw a punch that laid Jared flat.

"There you go," Sam said, as she helped Jared up after escorting her father inside. The punch seemed to have left the man exhausted, as if he had put every last bit of strength into it. Jensen tried to help her get Jared up, but bending over threw off his balance enough that he thought he had probably been more of a nuisance than a help.

"Haven't been planet-side much, have you?" Sam asked, as she steadied Jared.

"Not much," Jensen agreed.

"He's not welcome here!" the old man yelled as Sam led them both inside, to a different room than she had led her father. "Get him out of my house!"

"Dad," Samantha warned, shooting a stern look into the adjoining room.

Once they were seated Sam placed her hands on her hips and studied them. Then she held out her hand.

 

"Sam Smith," she said. "That curmudgeonly old fool is my father, Jeff Morgan." She looked intently at Jared's confused face while she spoke.

"Oh," Jared said, and his shoulders slumped until the suit kicked in and straightened them. "I'm sorry, I must have the wrong house."

"Not so fast," Sam said, and Jared blinked at her. "Adrianne Palicki was my mother's name, before she got married."

Jared's jaw dropped and his eyes popped open. "No, there's been a mistake."

"My mother," Sam continued slowly as she pulled out a chair for herself, "talked about a boy she knew when she was a girl. His name was Jared. They were going to get married, and then all hell broke loose. That you?"

Jared nodded dumbly.

"Where were you?" Morgan had entered the room and glared at Jared. His eyes flashed."She waited for you! For years! And you never showed. She went looking for you, all through the system." He shook his head in angry disbelief. "Even when we married. Even when we had a kid. She was always looking: every ship that came in, every tourist that came to the shop. I loved her, and she loved you!" he yelled. He took an unsteady step forward and Jared flinched back.

"Where —" Jared choked up and couldn't finish the question.

"Hospital," Sam said, gently. "Fourth floor. Palliative. We were going this morning anyway to visit. I just stopped by to pick him up. You can come with us."

"No." Jeff Morgan said. "He can't. She's _my_ wife!"

"She would want to see him," Sam said, "after all this time."

Jensen waited outside the hospital room while Jared went in. He ignored Morgan's hostile stare and Sam's sad one. Heart problems, they said.

Jared had stood with Jensen at the doorway until Sam had ushered him forward.

"Mom," Sam had said, in a low voice. "Someone here to see you." The white-haired head of the frail figure in the bed turned. Her cry of recognition, wavery though it was, brought a large smile to Jared's face. As Jared approached closer, Jensen withdrew, letting the door swing shut. A moment later, Sam also left the room and came to sit beside Morgan.

Jensen stayed standing. From the window in the door, he watched Jared sit beside Adrianne, careful not to jostle her. From this angle, he couldn't see Jared's face or hear what they said. Her hand came up to touch Jared's cheek, as if she thought he might disappear. She froze when her hand made contact and then her tears fell.

Jensen turned away.

"What took him so long?" Morgan asked, an actual question not an accusation.

"We've been looking. He hasn't stopped once, not since Newstart."

"But she's been here. The first place the ships stopped. Sure, she went looking—a decade, at least, around this system. But she always came back here."

"Mr. Morgan, he . . . we . . . I had heard she was dead. Had to go check. It was out-system."

Morgan shook his head slowly. "She's waited her whole life. Even when we were together, she was looking." He sighed. "They'd never got to that part of relationship that takes work," he said, and Jensen got the feeling that he needed to talk—that it was to Jensen didn't matter. "Jared was the perfect memory: passion and youth forever. You know how hard it is to compete with that, kid?"

"She loves you, Dad," Samantha said from where she bounced her daughter on her knee.

"I know she does." He patted Samantha's hand. "But not like that. First love, you know." He looked past Jensen to the opposite wall. "I used to dream that he returned—ugly, misshapen, old. She never had the chance to realize that he wasn't perfect. And now here you are. Perfect, again." The bitter edge had returned.

Jensen turned back to the window and spied Jared and Adrianne. Adrianne's face had the most brilliant smile on it. The smile softened as she closed her eyes.

Jensen started as a cacophony of beeping and alarms went off, and a flurry of people rushed past him into the room. Jared was pushed aside, and when he turned towards Jensen, his face was blotchy and covered in tears. He gave Jensen a helpless watery smile before he slid down the wall and buried his face in his hand.

"Get out," Morgan snarled to Jared, but his voice broke at the end and his face was streaked with tears. Morgan turned away from Jared and back to his wife. Jensen helped Jared up and they slipped out of Adrianne Morgan's room, leaving her family to grieve. Jensen led Jared away from Adrianne's family, and behind him, the beeping ceased as the machines were shut off in succession.

They made it back to the shuttle terminal without Jared saying another word, only an occasional nod as a response to Jensen. As they were waiting for the boarding call, Jensen cleared his throat and placed a hand on Jared's shoulder, but froze with his mouth open. Nothing he could say would help, so instead he offered his silence. Jared seemed to understand because he gripped Jensen's arm with force enough to leave hand-shaped bruises.

Jensen replayed in his mind the day he kicked Adrianne off the Impala, and the subsequent ripples it caused in so many lives. He ruthlessly quashed the usual absolving thought that if he hadn't accepted that Newstart contract, it would have been taken by another, and he shouldered the responsibility for Jared's pain.

As they boarded the Impala, Jared reached out and stopped Jensen. He smiled through reddened eyes.

"I found her," Jared said, staring at Jensen in wonder. Jared was standing straighter, but Jensen felt as though he was being crushed. "I said goodbye."

"Yeah," Jensen choked out.

"Jensen, I _found_ her. Thank you," Jared whispered, and he wiped away tears with jerky motions that only succeeded in moving the wetness around.

Jensen remained immobile. Jared gave him a soft pat on the cheek as he went straight his sleep station and pulled it closed. Jensen ignored Felicia, who asked him something when she appeared above him out of the propulsion maintenance access. Holding onto calm by his fingertips, Jensen bolted for Command, using his captain's code to seal the module, and making a physical barrier between him and the gratefulness and forgiveness he didn't deserve.

Adrianne was buried on Friday.

Jared was forbidden from attending by Morgan.

The four of them watched anyway, with the Impala's sensors pointed at the overcast sky above the gravesite, at silent attention in stationary orbit. The people on the ground were shades of orange, a side-effect of the Impala's cloud-cover filter. They watched as people—must be everyone in the small town, Jensen thought—slowly made their way past a handful of non-moving orange dots, which would have the family. Through the filter, the coffin blended with the surrounding ground, but they could tell where it was. Every person paused in the center of a circle, for a full ten seconds, sometimes twenty, as people said their goodbyes. _Ten seconds, Jared,_ he thought. _You get ten seconds to get over her._

After the funeral, Jared glided around the ship, quiet, introspective, and completely shut off from Jensen. Jensen felt the loss of Adrianne had thrown up a nearly palpable barrier between him and Jared. Jensen gave Jared his space, letting him process the events without having to face the person who had taken away everything he had wanted. Jensen quietly made plans that didn't include Jared, knowing it was just a matter of time now.

There had been one little planet in the Gerebund system that Jared had enjoyed. They had stayed there almost a month with a group of Newstart expats. Jared had come alive, had temporarily forgotten about his search, and when he got another lead, he had seemed sad to leave. Jensen could easily picture Jared making a life there. It had been a while since Jensen had been completely on his own, but he could get used to it. Again. Jensen stared out into the speckled darkness. He would have to.

Jensen knuckled his eyes open. He didn't know what had woken him. He'd fallen asleep while working from his sleep station again. Any sleep he'd had recently had been broken and was riddled with confusing dreams. So he worked, tracking down replacement parts for the Impala, staying abreast of the latest news. No one bothered him here, and it left Command free in case one of the others needed to access something.

His implant pinged.

"Ackles? You there?" Rachel's voice was unwelcome and he ignored her. "Ackles? I'm getting sick of this. And I don't really care if you talk to me but Felicia is worried, so you had better damn well start talking to her." The annoyance in her voice was clear. She killed the link, and he was left with only the routine sounds of the Impala.

When the Impala switched automatically to its nocturnal lighting cycle, he didn't bother turning on the sleep station's lights, and just floated in the darkness. A message from Kim blinked at him, reminding him that he hadn't replied. It had been on the repeater when they arrived at Bardock Station. He replayed it.

"Hey, Ackles!" The pronounced slur in Kim's voice made Jensen smile. Her crinkled face beamed at him and her bone white hair was efficiently tied behind her. It was the length of her hair, more than the wrinkles or hair color, which brought home how far their paths had diverged. Kim had adamantly believed in short hair for space crew. "I have another great grandson! Anyway, I'm drunk and I'm celebrating and I'm telling the world! So have a drink with me, whenever you get this. Hey, I'll even pour you one right now, and—whoops!" The image went dark but he could still hear her voice, slightly distorted. "Fuck! I think I dropped the—" The message cut out.

Jensen choked on a sob that couldn't escape but also couldn't be entirely suppressed, and he sent a reply.

"Hey, Kim. We found Jared's girl," Jensen said. "She died." Jensen stopped there for a bit, and wondered if there was really any more to say. "Do you know he thanked me?" Jensen wondered if she'd mistake his confusion for anger. "But he's going to figure it out. Going to think it through and hate me for separating them. If we had gone to Bardock, if I had checked more carefully with the asshole who turned us away. . ."

 _Not your fault_. He could hear her reply, so clearly, even though she wouldn't get this message for years or might never get it.

"I don't think I can let it go." He stopped and tried for a laugh that ended with a choke, which would never have fooled her. "Sorry," he said, weakly. "This isn't how this message should have gone. Congratulations on the grandson. He's a very lucky kid. Bye, Kim." He decisively terminated the recording, and a moment later he erased it and left his little room.

As Jensen threw himself into much-needed engine maintenance and fine-tuning the exhaust system, he came to a realization. While Jared had clung to Adrianne, so had he. Adrianne had been Jensen's only chance to make some sort of reparations. And he'd failed. In the deafening roar of the engine diagnostic cycle, Jensen wiped away the stray tear that leaked. Damn it! He didn't get to cry, to feel sorry for himself! He'd lost that privilege years ago.

When he was unable to maintain his focus anymore, when the indicator lights began to bleed together, he set the deep scan to analyze ship-wide airflow during his sleep cycle, and propelled himself towards his sleep station. He had just slid open the door when a long arm descended to block his entrance. He froze, blinked repeatedly, and looked up to find Jared glaring at him. A very close Jared. Jensen stared at him, looking at the flecks of color that so often changed to reflect Jared's mood, but Jensen couldn't pick it out this time. Anger? Concern? Sadness? Jensen could have picked any of them. Maybe all of them. He said nothing, and after a while Jared spoke.

"So that's it?" Jared harsh demand was thrown forward. Jensen flinched back, ever so slightly, but he was sure that Jared had seen—Jared was observant like that.

"What?"

"I saw, Jensen. You fucking bastard!" Jared said.

 _Here it comes,_ Jensen thought, and his gaze drifted to the floor. This was what he'd waited for, what he knew would come. The acceptance, that whatever accusations Jared would level were one hundred percent correct, settled into his bones, weighing him down like cement and he resigned himself to absorb the blows.

"No!" Jared yelled. "You look at me!" Jared's warm hand clamped on his jaw and wrenched him around. "I saw your flight plan. The recalibration for three. Oh," he said through clenched teeth, eyes intense and livid. "And you just got an acceptance of my residence application on that Gerebund planet. What the hell, Jensen!" Jared pushed Jensen's shoulder, slamming him backwards into the wall.

"Jared, I—"

"You what? Don't have to be dragged around to look for Adrianne anymore? Can't wait to get rid of me, now that she's dead? Fuck! Did you even wait until she was buried before you started looking for ways to off-load me?"

"No! It's not like that—"

"It's exactly like that! You haven't really spoken to me in days. You hole up in the maintenance crawlspaces to avoid me. What the hell did I do? You don't have to pretend to care anymore, is that it? You can wash your hands of me with a clean conscience?"

"Fuck you, Jared! You know it's not about that."

"Really?" Jared said behind clenched teeth.

"Oh, you want me to spell it out? Fine," Jensen yelled back, exhaustion weakening his defenses. He threw his arms wide as his eyes narrowed in anger, and he ruthlessly tamped down his other emotions and let that anger take the fore. "Sure, let's get it all out in the open! I destroyed your life. Go on, say it! You've said it before, so quit pussyfooting around. I ripped you away from her and couldn't . . . dragged you all over the fucking universe while someone else had your goddamed life! Say it!"

Jared visibly started and stared at him. "Wow . . . I . . ." He trailed off. Then his lips narrowed and his face hardened.

"This wasn't your fucking fault, Jensen! Selfish, self-absorbed, masochist! You think I can't tell the difference?" Jensen felt Jared's hot breath as he yelled inches from his face. Then Jared abruptly turned around. Jensen thought he was leaving when he turned again, throwing his arms wide, pleading, angry. "After all this time, you think I can't see that you tried to make it right? Newsflash: you never can."

Jared's quiet statement rung in Jensen's head like a death knell. Or a firing squad. Or an extinction-level meteor strike.

"It's not yours to fix, Jensen," Jared continued as he turned away, oblivious to his words' effect, "and it never was." He walked out of the corridor, leaving Jensen, quietly shattered, drifting in the corridor.

At some point the maintenance program stopped and it emitted a ping to his earpiece every hour, as a reminder that he had not yet moved on to the second stage. Jensen ignored it for the first day, same as he ignored the empty rumbling of his stomach. On the second day, he took off both piercings, the labret ship link and the tragus speaker, and calmly smashed them against the wall with the toe of his boot before he returned to his sleeping bag and stared at the wall.

Jensen had been ignoring Felicia's concern and Rachel's threats when Jared rapped sharply on the door and ordered him to get out. Jensen attempted to ignore him as well, but Jared didn't bother waiting for a response; instead, he forced the door open and slapped an Amberri carrot into Jensen's palm.

"Eat it," Jared said, and he left.

A couple hours later he returned. He said nothing and just stared at Jensen.

"So," Jared began, and his voice startled Jensen. "The whole shaving and showering fad is over?"

Jensen only shrugged as he floated in his sleeping bag, the barest movement of his shoulders.

"Well," Jared continued, "if you're not going to do it for you, then do it for me." With that, he pulled Jensen out of his room, and towed him, sleeping bag and all, into the shower which had already been turned on. It was frigid. Jensen yelled and Jared stood there and said. "No need to wash the bag and clothes, we're going to trash them." Jared walked to the wash station hatchway and paused.

"Jensen," he heard Jared's voice even as he struggled to extract himself from his wet bedding. "I loved Adrianne. And I miss her." Jared huffed a mirthless laugh, as if only just realizing something. "She was my what-could-have-been. But . . ." he sighed, and continued. "Do you realize I've travelled with you longer than I even knew Adrianne? It . . ." He sighed again. "Anyway. Take your shower. You stink."

The hatch hissed as it shut.

When Jensen had gotten out of the shower and stuffed his wet bag into the trash, he stood in the hallway, unsure of what to do. Jared would be pissed off if he returned to his room, and now that he was in motion, he could admit to himself that he didn't really want to. He floated outside the Command Module hatch, unsure of his welcome. When the hatch opened, he wasn't prepared for Felicia's arm to snake out, grab him and yank him in.

"Huh?" he said, and Felicia rolled her eyes and inclined her head towards the screen. "Shipboard cameras, remember. Can always find you. Now come take a look at this."

Jensen frowned, and almost against his will his eyes were drawn to the new flight plan in front of Jared who had wandered in.

"So," Felicia said, "you're contracted to head out-system. Since the Impala would only have been half-full," she raised an eyebrow at him, "—didn't plan this out too well, did you?—Rachel made some contacts and we now have a shipment of Bardockian red coffee beans to transport to an intermediate moon. Oh, and Jared canceled his residence application." She fixed Jensen with a glare. "Idiot."

"But. . ." he stopped at Jared's sharp look. Then Jensen continued anyway. "This run . . . Jared, it's a long ways, even for long-distance cargo. It will put us far out of time with everyone you know. The group here, or in Gerebund. . ."

"Jensen, there's no one else I want to see! And I'm not letting you go without me."

"And me," Felicia said, with a little smirk, looking from Jared to Jensen with a knowing look that Jensen found particularly frustrating since there was nothing to know. "You don't want to be without me, either, right? And lucky for you, I'm a package deal."

"Ugh, are we done with the rainbows and roses yet?" Rachel's voice dripped with dramatized boredom from where she was watching them on the front monitor. "Ready to leave. Anytime. Kiss and make up later."

Jensen's eyes found Jared, who was standing now only an arm's length away. Jared was staring at him with a bemused, confused expression, searching for something. And the little ball of heat that bounced around Jensen's stomach any time Jared was near, no matter how much he had tried to make it go away, grew larger as Jared suddenly smiled at him. Hope robbed him of speech when he saw Jared's eyes filled with warmth. And Jensen smiled back.

 

THE END

 

> Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,

> Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.

> ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading! This year's BB was roughly based on Longfellow's Evangeline—except that I added a new viewpoint character and secondary characters, set it in space, combined it with my extremely vague understanding of Stephen Hawking's theory of time travel, and turned it into J2. Then I added a good dose of handwavium and ta-dah! - WT  
> Acknowledgements  
> Have you all taken a look at dollarformyname's artwork? If not, run to check it out:<http://dollarformyname.livejournal.com/75401.html>. Dollar, thank you for all the sketches, and titles, and banners, and buttons! I LOVE them!!! They're lovely and gorgeous (even though you tried to convince me otherwise *gives you a hard glare, then smooshes you*) and I especially love Jared's expression and the title page!
> 
> How should I even start to thank firesign10 for her wonderful beta job? I could offer her my firstborn, but that tends to be frowned upon, and it wouldn't be close to enough to repay her for putting up with this year's last-minute rewrites and my keyboard's tendency to throw in sporadic extra spaces just to make things more interesting. Thank you so much!
> 
> I couldn't have written the medical bits without dear_tiger's brainstorming and patiently answering my endless questions. Only tiny slivers of our discussions made it into the fic, but I absolutely needed that background in order to write those little slivers.
> 
> A huge thank you to deceptivemirror, not only for the brainstorming but for looking over a couple sections and giving me very helpful comments and suggestions.
> 
> Thanks to paleogymnast for running omgspnbigbang and for clarifying some legal terms for me.
> 
> And THANK YOU to wendy for all her work running spn_j2_bigbang!


End file.
